Description
LoRa (Long Range) is a Semtech-proprietary chirp spread-spectrum sub-GHz radio physical layer (with the LoRaWAN MAC stack on top) targeting low-power wide-area IoT. It appears in the bibliography as a comparison sensing modality: kilometre-scale range and CSS modulation enable through-wall and large-area sensing that Wi-Fi cannot reach, but at very low data rates and coarse temporal resolution. Some recent papers extract LoRa CSI for sensing similarly to Wi-Fi CSI; for the thesis LoRa is mostly relevant as a "complementary modality" benchmark, not a deployment target.
Specs / capabilities
- Sub-GHz ISM bands (433 / 868 / 915 MHz depending on region)
- Chirp Spread Spectrum modulation (high processing gain → long range)
- Spreading factors SF7-SF12 trade range for data rate
- Bandwidth 125 / 250 / 500 kHz
- Up to 15 km line-of-sight, 2-5 km urban
- 0.3-50 kbps data rate
Tooling
- Semtech reference designs (SX127x / SX126x)
- Heltec / Adafruit / Pycom dev boards
- LoRaWAN gateways (Things Network, Helium)
Used by (papers)
- LoRa-based localization / sensing papers (RSSI / CSI)
- Through-wall sensing comparison vs Wi-Fi CSI