Setting up a LoRaWAN testing environment

Product Name	Quantity	Image
Registered NBnano + package contents	1
Ethenet Switch (not included)	1
Gateway Package Contents	minimum 1

 

Configuring the NBnano

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Before configuring gateways, the NBnano must have its final LAN settings, and LoRaWAN® region configured.

Step 1:  Connect to your NBnano’s WiFi network using the credentials configured during registration.

Step 2: Open your browser and browse to “192.168.12.1” to reach your NBnano Platform.

Step 3: Log in and navigate to Project -> Network, here you will see 1 network.

Step 4: Change the network interface labeled BMS from DHCP to Static and assign it a new IP address. Here we use 192.168.99.11 as the IP address for the NBnano. Click the Apply button for your changes to take effect.

 

 

Configuring the LoRaWAN® region

Step 1: Navigate to Project -> Settings -> LNS configuration, here you will see a list of available LoRaWAN® Regions.

Step 2: Change the LNS frequency to the region you wish to use and click the Apply button for your changes to take effect.

Configuring the Gateways

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The LoRa Gateway included is easy to configure. It connects to your NBnano and provides the link between the NBnano platform and your devices. Depending on the number of devices and the area you are covering, you may need more than one gateway. This article contains all the required information to configure and connect the Femto Gateway to the NBnano, the process to connect other gateways should be similar.

To configure your gateway(s) plug them into a network or directly into the NBnano (if only configuring one gateway) using an Ethernet cable. Ensure both devices are powered by their power supplies and turned on.

NOTE: DO NOT POWER THE GATEWAY USING THE USB PORT ON ANOTHER DEVICE. GATEWAY REQUIRES 5V 2A SUPPLY TO FUNCTION PROPERLY.

 

Connect to the Femto Gateway

1. Power the Gateway and ensure the power light goes fixed green.
2. The SSID will be “AP-<Last 6 digits of MAC> and can be found on the back of the gateway.
3. 
4. Select the device and click Connect.
5. Open a Browser and browse to 192.168.55.1
6. Login with: user: admin password: admin

Set Frequency Band and Server

Server

1. Navigate to Packet Forward → Settings

2. Set the Server Address to the IP of your NBnano. In the example above we set the NBnano IP as 192.168.99.11
   Take note of the Gateway ID, as this will be used later on when adding the gateway to the NBnano.

3. Configure the rest of your gateway info to the same as the example below.

 

Frequency Band

1. Navigate to Packet Forward → Settings

2. Set Central Frequencies for Radio 0 and Radio 1 based on the frequency band of your region(see below)

AS923

Packet Forward → Settings → Radio 0

Packet Forward → Settings → Radio 1

AU915

Packet Forward → Settings → Radio 0

Packet Forward → Settings → Radio 1

Change Gateway WiFi AP Password

1. Navigate to Network → Wireless

2. Set encryption to WPAWPA2-PSK

3. Enter new password in Key

Configuring WAN Setup

Go to ‘Network -> WAN -> Ethernet WAN’.

 

Change the WAN type from DHCP Client to STATIC IP.

 

Change the IP to something on the range of the NBnano (192.168.99.10 in this case) as seen below. Use your local gateway and DNS server setting if you have them otherwise use a free IP address from the same range. Apply, and wait for the device to reboot.

 

(Optional) Once the gateway has re-booted, ensure that the gateway and NBnano can communicate with a ping.

Navigate to Network > Diagnostics and fill in the NBnano’s static IP address on the field above the PING button. Once filled, press the PING button to test the communication between the  gateway and the NBnano. A successful communication will result in the screen below.

If there is an issue with network configuration or cabling the output will show 100% packet loss. In the case of an error carefully follow the instructions above, ensuring gateway and NBnano are on the same IP range, and the gateway is wired into the same network as the NBnano.

 

PC network configuration (optional)

Connect your PC into into the NBnano LAN network and set your PC to have a static IP. Follow these instructions to do so.

1: Open your Control Panel and click the network & internet.

2: Click Network and Sharing Center

3: Here the networks you are currently connected to are shown. Now click the Ethernet right after the word ‘connections’.

4: A new window will pop-up. Click ‘properties’ and a new window will pop-up again.

5: Now Look for Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click ‘properties’.

6: In the new window choose ‘use the following IP address’. Enter the information as per the image below:

 

You can now access the NBnano Platform through the LAN using a browser pointing at the NBnano IP address (192.168.99.11 in this example).

 

Adding Gateways to the NBnano Platform

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LoRaWAN Gateway Driver

To add a Gateway, go to the IQnexus market and find ‘LoRaWAN Gateway’. Click on Actions and select New Device.

Gateway Details

On the next screen fill in the gateway details:

DevEUI
This is the ID of the gateway. You can find this ID on the Packet Forward settings page in the gateway settings (192.168.55.1).

Name
The name you wish to associate with your gateway.

Press apply when done.

 

You should be taken back to Devices > Gateways and there you will see your new gateway. As soon as the Gateway connects to the NBnano, link status will show as green as. You may need to refresh the page for the status to change.

Debugging

If your gateway’s link status never changes to green, you must check the following settings:

– DevEUI and Gateway ID must match.
– Assigned IPs of both the gateway and the NBnano are in the same network segment.
– The NBnano Platform is accessible through the LAN using a PC.
– The Server Ports in the Packet Forward Settings on the LoRaWAN Gateway are 1700.

Summary

1: First, we navigate to the NBnano through the web browser by heading to “192.168.12.1” (after connection to its WIFI hotpot).

2: We then changed the LAN of the NBnano in the network section to one of our own preference, in this example this was changed to 192.168.99.11.

3: After we have configured the LAN of the NBnano we connect to our gateway through a WIFI connection. We do this so we can change the network preferences to suit our local configuration.

4: Once we are inside the gateway settings we set the Server Address to the IP of our NBnano. This is so our gateway has an address to relay data to.

5: We also configure our Ethernet WAN type from DHCP to STATIC so we can manually set the IP address of the gateway to an available IP address on your local network.

6: After our WAN type has been set to STATIC we give our gateway an IP address that is free and on the same network. We assign our gateway an IP of 192.168.99.10 because it is on the same network of our NBnano: 192.168.99.xx. This is also an IP that is available on our local network.

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If you have any issues with the setup process, please Contact us.