Design and Implementation of LoRaWAN Autonomous Base Station as a Communication Network for Rural Areas

This study designed and implemented a low power LoRaWAN autonomous base station, which consists of a RAK7246 gateway and two Arduino MKR WAN 1310 as slave gateway nodes. The base station is capable of sending and receiving messages by configuring the gateway using ChirpStack OS and Node-RED, while programming the nodes to function as Class C devices. The antenna design for the slave gateways was improved by designing a unidirectional Yagi-Uda PCB antenna with an impedance of approximately 50 Ohms and capable of operating at the LoRa frequency plan of 868 MHz. The improved antenna design was capable of sending and receiving messages as far as 2 km while maintaining a spreading factor of 7, especially in the 1 km to 1.5 km range. The measured received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values of the fabricated antenna was found to be higher compared to the original omnidirectional whip antenna. Overall, a communication network was created with a LoRaWAN base station and improved the coverage and performance of the current system with the implementation of a fabricated unidirectional PCB Yagi-Uda antenna.