Aug 01, 2019 06:00:00

The world's longest record of communication distance by 'LoRa' that radio waves reach directly from a distance of 700 km or more is updated twice a day

LoRa is a wireless communication protocol that uses an unlicensed and available ISM band, and is used in IoT devices because it can communicate in a wide area with low power. The world's longest record of communication distance using such LoRa communication was updated on July 29, 2019. In addition, it has been reported that the 'newly updated world longest record will be repainted after 5 hours'.

LoRaWAN® distance world record broken, twice. 766 km (476 miles) using 25mW transmission power
https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/article/lorawan-distance-world-record

In the fourth mission of the civil science project 'Servet', which conducts stratospheric experiments, several balloons were launched from Spain on July 13, 2019. The location of the balloon was tracked from the ground using LoRaWAN provided by The Things Network of the IoT platform.

The following map is the

TTN Mapper visualization of the balloon position from Spain. The balloon flew to Spain, France, and Portugal, and the farthest was that there was communication from a location outside of Zaragoza , Spain, to Lisbon, Portugal, at a distance of 741 km and at an altitude of 33,100 m. This communication surpassed the record of 702 km achieved in August 2017 by 39 km, and has set the world's longest record for the first time in about two years.

The computer and architecture research group

at the University of Zaragoza flew a balloon 'Diana I' aiming at an altitude of 40,000m at about the same time as the Servet's balloon record update. This Diana I was also equipped with the same LoRa communications device as the Servet balloon.

However, Diana I can not reach the expected altitude due to bad weather, and when it descends to an altitude of 18000 m, transmission of LoRa communication packets from Diana I ceases. However, when the LoRa communication packet was received again on July 29, 2019, the altitude of Diana I rose to 33,200 m and continued to fly, and after the last communication, After 54 hours it seems to be missing somewhere in the Atlantic.

When Diana I is flying about 25,000 meters above Zaragoza, packets from Diana I were received at 24 gateways. One of the gateways received was located at a ski area about 766 km away from Diana I on a 2253 m high mountain. The reception was about 5 hours after the Servet balloon's update of the world record, and it exceeded the longest record of communication distance by LoRa by 25 km.

The following image shows the gateway of the ski resort that actually received the packet from Diana.

According to Semtech 's LoRaWAN Academy , a corporate communications supplier, the longest communication distance in LoRa in Europe is 800 km. The Things Network states that 'the new world record is approaching the theoretical maximum distance that can be communicated by LoRa', and the longest record of the communication distance of LoRaWAN will be further in the fifth mission of Servet which will be performed in the future. I hope to be updated.