Design and Evaluation of an SDR-based LoRa Cloud Radio Access Network

Long Range (LoRa) defines a popular modulation scheme based on the chirp spread spectrum technique. It is used in Low Power Wide Area Networks (LP-WANs) for the Internet-of-Things (IoT). Thus, this work here designs, specifies, implements, and evaluates a Cloud Radio Access Network (CRAN) architecture for LoRa networks, while using (a) Software Defined Radios (SDR) to receive/send radio signals and (b) Docker to virtualize the setup. (c) A software modulator is developed to emit signals on the downlink targeting regular LoRa end-device receivers, such as Semtech SX1276 chips. Finally, the network, processing, and cost requirements of the C-RAN implemented are evaluated.