HYDERABAD: After the World Design Assembly, it’s time for some cutting-edge technology take centrestage in the city. The Things Conference India is being held from October 18-19 at Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC), and it is the second edition of Asia’s Largest Conference on LoRaWAN.
It is a Low-Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology protocol that has been designed to connect ‘things’ wirelessly in regional, national or global networks. What got us excited that typical LoRaWAN set-ups offer coverage of 2-5 km in urban areas and above 15 km in semi-urban and rural areas. We talk to Ram Ganesh, CEO of CyberEye, which is organising the conference, about the technology and how it can help to build smart cities.
What is LoRaWAN?
LoRaWAN is a wireless communication technology that enables devices to communicate data over long range by consuming low power.
Technically, LoRaWAN® is a low-power, wide-area networking protocol/specification, which is designed to wirelessly connect battery operated ‘things’ in regional, national or global networks. To do this, it uses the LoRa modulation technique for data communication.
What are the ‘things’ that can be connected through LoRaWAN?
LoRaWAN targets the key requirements of the “Internet of Things(IoT)” space.
When we say ‘things’, the scope of what things could be connected over LoRaWAN is unlimited. These things can be in any domain like agriculture, cities, buildings, logistics, parks, airports, forests, etc.
For eg: we can connect all soil-moisture sensors in a large farm over a LoRaWAN network, and get the soil moisture levels and nitrogen levels to a central location. We can also connect all water meters in a colony over a LoRaWAN network and remotely monitor water usage, any spills or leakages etc. in a central location
How much would it cost to install Lorawan over 15 km?
Around Rs 3 lakh.
How can we make Hyderabad a smart city with LoRaWAN?
As told earlier, there are unlimited areas of things that can be connected. Parking sensors could be connected over LoRaWAN, we could remotely get the information whether a given slot is occupied or not, thereby automating the process of unauthorized parking and eventually eliminating traffic hurdles because of them.
By connecting city services such as lighting, parking, waste removal, and more, cities can optimise the use of utilities and personnel to save time and money. Some such solutions are:
Smart water leakage detection
Smart meters
Street lighting
Smart waste management system
Smart bus schedule signs etc
Can energy sources like the sun be used to power the batteries that run LoRaWAN?
Definitely. Combining renewal energy sources to power the batteries will definitely be an add-on.
Moreover, LoRaWAN is designed for battery-operated and low-bandwidth devices to communicate with each other and last for a battery life of a few years.
Has this been implemented in any country? What stage is it in India?
LoRaWAN is finding very fast adoption in European countries, especially the Netherlands. The Things Network is a global open IoT network which started from the Netherlands and now has a presence in 141 countries.
Now that this is an emerging technology, we want India to be at the forefront of this technology space.
Will it be easy to hack LoRaWAN?
We can build both public and private networks with LoRaWAN. It serves one of the key requirements of the Internet of Things(IoT), which is end-to-end security.
The LoRaWAN® specification defines two layers of security:
A unique 128-bit Network Session Key shared between the end-device and network server
A unique 128-bit Application Session Key (AppSKey) shared end-to-end at the application level
With the above levels of security in place, it’s almost impossible to penetrate a LoRaWAN network and gather data, even if it is a public network.