AdaFruit.IO LoRa Windows 10 IoT Core Field Gateway

This project is now live on github.com, sample Arduino with Dragino LoRa Shield for Arduino, MakerFabs Maduino, Dragino LoRa Mini Dev, M2M Low power Node and Netduino with Elecrow LoRa RFM95 Shield clients uploaded in the next couple of days.

AdaFruit.IO.LoRaScreenShot
While building this AdaFruit.IO LoRa field gateway, and sample clients I revisited my RFM9XLoRa-Net library a couple of times adding functionality and renaming constants to make it more consistent. I made many of the default values public so they could be used in the field gateway config file.
The bare minimum configuration is

{
“AdaFruitIOUserName”: “——“,
“AdaFruitIOApiKey”: “——“,
“AdaFruitIOGroupName”: “——”
“Address”: “——“,
“Frequency”: 915000000.0
}

So far battery life and wireless communications range for the Arduino clients is looking pretty good.

ArduinoUnoR3DraginoLoRa

Arduino LoRa Payload Addressing Client

This is a demo Arduino client (based on one of the examples from Arduino-LoRa) that uploads telemetry data to my Windows 10 IoT Core on Raspberry PI field gateway proof of concept(PoC).

Bill of materials (Prices Sep 2018)

ArduinoUnoR3DraginoLoRa

The code is pretty basic, it shows how to pack the payload and set the necessary RFM9X/SX127X LoRa module configuration, has no power conservation, advanced wireless configuration etc.

/*
  Adapted from LoRa Duplex communication with Sync Word

  Sends temperature & humidity data from Seeedstudio 

  https://www.seeedstudio.com/Grove-Temperature-Humidity-Sensor-High-Accuracy-Min-p-1921.html

  To my Windows 10 IoT Core RFM 9X library

  https://blog.devmobile.co.nz/2018/09/03/rfm9x-iotcore-payload-addressing/

*/
#include
#include
#include
const int csPin = 10;          // LoRa radio chip select
const int resetPin = 9;       // LoRa radio reset
const int irqPin = 2;         // change for your board; must be a hardware interrupt pin

// Field gateway configuration
const byte FieldGatewayAddress[] = "LoRaIoT1";
const float FieldGatewayFrequency =  915000000.0;
const byte FieldGatewaySyncWord = 0x12 ;

// Payload configuration
const int PayloadSizeMaximum = 64 ;
char payload[PayloadSizeMaximum] = "";
const byte SensorReadingSeperator = ',' ;

// Manual serial number configuration
char DeviceId[] = {"Arduino1"};

const int LoopSleepDelaySeconds = 60;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  while (!Serial);

  Serial.println("LoRa Setup");

  // override the default CS, reset, and IRQ pins (optional)
  LoRa.setPins(csPin, resetPin, irqPin);// set CS, reset, IRQ pin

  if (!LoRa.begin(FieldGatewayFrequency))
  {
    Serial.println("LoRa init failed. Check your connections.");
    while (true);
  }

  // Need to do this so field gateways pays attention to messsages from this device
  LoRa.enableCrc();
  LoRa.setSyncWord(FieldGatewaySyncWord);  

  //LoRa.dumpRegisters(Serial);
  Serial.println("LoRa Setup done.");

  // Configure the Seeedstudio TH02 temperature & humidity sensor
  Serial.println("TH02 setup");
  TH02.begin();
  delay(100);
  Serial.println("TH02 Setup done");  

  Serial.println("Setup done");
}

void loop()
{
  int payloadLength = 0 ;
  float temperature ;
  float humidity ;

  Serial.println("Loop called");
  memset(payload, 0, sizeof(payload));

  // prepare the payload header with "To" Address length (top nibble) and "From" address length (bottom nibble)
  payload[0] = (strlen(FieldGatewayAddress) << 4) | strlen( DeviceId ) ;
  payloadLength += 1;

  // Copy the "To" address into payload
  memcpy(&payload[payloadLength], FieldGatewayAddress, strlen(FieldGatewayAddress));
  payloadLength += strlen(FieldGatewayAddress) ;

  // Copy the "From" into payload
  memcpy(&payload[payloadLength], DeviceId, strlen(DeviceId));
  payloadLength += strlen(DeviceId) ;

  // Read the temperature and humidity values then display nicely
  temperature = TH02.ReadTemperature();
  humidity = TH02.ReadHumidity();

  Serial.print("T:");
  Serial.print( temperature, 1 ) ;
  Serial.print( "C" ) ;

  Serial.print(" H:");
  Serial.print( humidity, 0 ) ;
  Serial.println( "%" ) ;

  // Copy the temperature into the payload
  payload[ payloadLength] = 't';
  payloadLength += 1 ;
  payload[ payloadLength] = ' ';
  payloadLength += 1 ;
  payloadLength += strlen( dtostrf(temperature, -1, 1, &payload[payloadLength]));
  payload[ payloadLength] = SensorReadingSeperator;
  payloadLength += sizeof(SensorReadingSeperator) ;

  // Copy the humidity into the payload
  payload[ payloadLength] = 'h';
  payloadLength += 1 ;
  payload[ payloadLength] = ' ';
  payloadLength += 1 ;
  payloadLength += strlen( dtostrf(humidity, -1, 0, &payload[payloadLength]));  

  // display info about payload then send it (No ACK) with LoRa unlike nRF24L01
  Serial.print( "RFM9X/SX127X Payload length:");
  Serial.print( payloadLength );
  Serial.println( " bytes" );

  LoRa.beginPacket();
  LoRa.write( payload, payloadLength );
  LoRa.endPacket();      

  Serial.println("Loop done");

  delay(LoopSleepDelaySeconds * 1000l);
}

In the debug output window the messages from the device looked like this

Register 0x40 – Value 0X00 – Bits 00000000
Register 0x41 – Value 0X00 – Bits 00000000
Register 0x42 – Value 0X12 – Bits 00010010

19:15:21-RX From Arduino1 PacketSnr 9.3 Packet RSSI -49dBm RSSI -105dBm = 11 byte message "t 18.8,h 91"

19:15:30-TX 25 byte message Hello from LoRaIoT1 ! 255
19:15:30-TX Done
19:15:31-RX From Arduino1 PacketSnr 9.3 Packet RSSI -49dBm RSSI -103dBm = 11 byte message "t 18.8,h 91"

19:15:41-RX From Arduino1 PacketSnr 9.3 Packet RSSI -48dBm RSSI -106dBm = 11 byte message "t 18.8,h 91"

There must be a nicer way of building the payload, a topic for a future post maybe.

RFM9X.NetMF Payload Addressing

I have extended the NetMF sample application and library to show how the conditional compilation directive ADDRESSED_MESSAGES_PAYLOAD controls the configuration.

When the application is started the RFM9X is in sleep mode, then when the Receive method is called the device is set to ReceiveContinuous.

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Copyright (c) August 2018, devMobile Software
//
// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
// You may obtain a copy of the License at
//
//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
//
// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
// limitations under the License.
//
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
namespace devMobile.IoT.NetMF.Rfm9X.Client
{
   using System;
   using System.Text;
   using System.Threading;
   using devMobile.IoT.NetMF.ISM;
   using Microsoft.SPOT;
   using SecretLabs.NETMF.Hardware.Netduino;

   public class Program
   {
      public static void Main()
      {
         Rfm9XDevice rfm9XDevice = new Rfm9XDevice(Pins.GPIO_PIN_D10, Pins.GPIO_PIN_D9, Pins.GPIO_PIN_D2);
         byte MessageCount = Byte.MinValue;

         rfm9XDevice.Initialise( frequency:915000000, paBoost: true, rxPayloadCrcOn: true);
#if ADDRESSED_MESSAGES
         rfm9XDevice.Receive(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("Netduino"));
#else
         rfm9XDevice.Receive();
#endif
         rfm9XDevice.OnDataReceived += rfm9XDevice_OnDataReceived;
         rfm9XDevice.OnTransmit += rfm9XDevice_OnTransmit;

         while (true)
         {
            string messageText = "Hello NetMF LoRa! " + MessageCount.ToString();
            MessageCount += 1;
            byte[] messageBytes = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(messageText);
            Debug.Print("Sending " + messageBytes.Length + " bytes message " + messageText);

#if ADDRESSED_MESSAGES
            rfm9XDevice.Send(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("LoRaIoT1"), messageBytes);
#else
            rfm9XDevice.Send(messageBytes);
#endif
            Thread.Sleep(10000);
         }
      }

      static void rfm9XDevice_OnTransmit()
      {
         Debug.Print("Transmit-Done");
      }

#if ADDRESSED_MESSAGES
      static void rfm9XDevice_OnDataReceived(byte[] address, float packetSnr, int packetRssi, int rssi, byte[] data)
#else
      static void rfm9XDevice_OnDataReceived(float packetSnr, int packetRssi, int rssi,  byte[] data)
#endif
      {
         try
         {
            string messageText = new string(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetChars(data));
#if ADDRESSED_MESSAGES
            string addressText = new string(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetChars(address));

            Debug.Print(DateTime.UtcNow.ToString("HH:MM:ss") + "-From " + addressText + " PacketSnr " + packetSnr.ToString("F1") + " Packet RSSI " + packetRssi + "dBm RSSI " + rssi + "dBm = " + data.Length + " byte message " + @"""" + messageText + @"""") ;
#else
            Debug.Print(DateTime.UtcNow.ToString("HH:MM:ss") + "-Rfm9X PacketSnr " + packetSnr.ToString("F1") + " Packet RSSI " + packetRssi + "dBm RSSI " + rssi + "dBm = " + data.Length + " byte message " + @"""" + messageText + @"""") ;
#endif
         }
         catch (Exception ex)
         {
            Debug.Print(ex.Message);
         }
      }
   }
}

namespace System.Diagnostics
{
   public enum DebuggerBrowsableState
   {
      Never = 0,
      Collapsed = 2,
      RootHidden = 3
   }
}

The Netduino client “plays nicely” with my Windows 10 IoT Core on Raspberry PI field gateway proof of concept(PoC).

The Semech SX127X datasheet describes how addressing can be implemented using interrupts which I will have a look at soon.

Library needs further testing and I’m working on a sample Arduino application.

RFM9X.IoTCore Payload Addressing

The reason for RFM9XLoRaNet was so that I could build a field gateway to upload telemetry data from “cheap n cheerful” *duino devices to Azure IoT Hubs and AdaFruit.IO.

I have extended the Windows10IoTCore sample application and library to show how the conditional compilation directive ADDRESSED_MESSAGES_PAYLOAD controls the configuration.

When the application is started the RFM9X is in sleep mode, then when the Receive method is called the device is set to ReceiveContinuous.

public void Run(IBackgroundTaskInstance taskInstance)
{
   rfm9XDevice.Initialise(915000000.0, paBoost: true, rxPayloadCrcOn : true);

#if DEBUG
   rfm9XDevice.RegisterDump();
#endif

#if ADDRESSED_MESSAGES_PAYLOAD
   rfm9XDevice.OnReceive += Rfm9XDevice_OnReceive;
   rfm9XDevice.Receive(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(Environment.MachineName));
#else
   rfm9XDevice.Receive();
#endif
   rfm9XDevice.OnTransmit += Rfm9XDevice_OnTransmit;

   Task.Delay(10000).Wait();

   while (true)
   {
      string messageText = string.Format("Hello from {0} ! {1}", Environment.MachineName, NessageCount);
      MessageCount -= 1;

      byte[] messageBytes = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(messageText);
      Debug.WriteLine("{0:HH:mm:ss}-TX {1} byte message {2}", DateTime.Now, messageBytes.Length, messageText);
#if ADDRESSED_MESSAGES_PAYLOAD
      this.rfm9XDevice.Send(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("AddressGoesHere"), messageBytes);
#else
      this.rfm9XDevice.Send(messageBytes);
#endif
      Task.Delay(10000).Wait();
   }
}

On receipt of a message, the message is parsed and the to/from addresses and payload extracted (ADDRESSED_MESSAGES defined) or passed to the client application for processing.

private void Rfm9XDevice_OnReceive(object sender, Rfm9XDevice.OnDataReceivedEventArgs e)
{
   try
   {
      string messageText = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetString(e.Data);

#if ADDRESSED_MESSAGES_PAYLOAD
      string addressText = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetString(e.Address);

      Debug.WriteLine(@"{0:HH:mm:ss}-RX From {1} PacketSnr {2:0.0} Packet RSSI {3}dBm RSSI {4}dBm = {5} byte message ""{6}""", DateTime.Now, addressText, e.PacketSnr, e.PacketRssi, e.Rssi, e.Data.Length, messageText);
#else
      Debug.WriteLine(@"{0:HH:mm:ss}-RX PacketSnr {1:0.0} Packet RSSI {2}dBm RSSI {3}dBm = {4} byte message ""{5}""", DateTime.Now, e.PacketSnr, e.PacketRssi, e.Rssi, e.Data.Length, messageText);
#endif
   }
   catch (Exception ex)
   {
      Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message);
   }
}

The addressing implementation needs further testing and I’m building sample .NetMF and *duino clients.

Rfm9xLoRaDevice NetMF Payload CRCs

To ensure I was only handling messages with valid contents I added code to appended a cyclic redundancy check(CRC) onto outbound messages and validate the CRC on inbound messages.

First step was to update the initialise method parameter list (the parameter list is huge but for most scenarios the defaults are fine)

public void Initialise(RegOpModeMode regOpModeAfterInitialise, // RegOpMode
         double frequency = FrequencyDefault, // RegFrMsb, RegFrMid, RegFrLsb
         bool rxDoneignoreIfCrcMissing = true, bool rxDoneignoreIfCrcInvalid = true,
         bool paBoost = false, byte maxPower = RegPAConfigMaxPowerDefault, byte outputPower = RegPAConfigOutputPowerDefault, // RegPaConfig
         bool ocpOn = true, byte ocpTrim = RegOcpOcpTrimDefault, // RegOcp
         RegLnaLnaGain lnaGain = LnaGainDefault, bool lnaBoost = false, // RegLna
         RegModemConfigBandwidth bandwidth = RegModemConfigBandwidthDefault, RegModemConfigCodingRate codingRate = RegModemConfigCodingRateDefault, RegModemConfigImplicitHeaderModeOn implicitHeaderModeOn = RegModemConfigImplicitHeaderModeOnDefault, //RegModemConfig1
         RegModemConfig2SpreadingFactor spreadingFactor = RegModemConfig2SpreadingFactorDefault, bool txContinuousMode = false, bool rxPayloadCrcOn = false,
         ushort symbolTimeout = SymbolTimeoutDefault,
         ushort preambleLength = PreambleLengthDefault,
         byte payloadLength = PayloadLengthDefault,
         byte payloadMaxLength = PayloadMaxLengthDefault,
         byte freqHoppingPeriod = FreqHoppingPeriodDefault,
         bool lowDataRateOptimize = false, bool agcAutoOn = false,
         byte ppmCorrection = ppmCorrectionDefault,
         RegDetectOptimizeDectionOptimize detectionOptimize = RegDetectOptimizeDectionOptimizeDefault,
         bool invertIQ = false,
         RegisterDetectionThreshold detectionThreshold = RegisterDetectionThresholdDefault,
         byte syncWord = RegSyncWordDefault)

The rxPayloadCrcOn needs to be set to True for outbound messages to have a CRC.

Then in the RxDone interrupt handler the CRC is checked (regHopChannel & regIrqFlagsMask) if this feature is enabled. Any messages with missing\invalid CRCs will currently be silently discarded and I’m not certain this is a good idea.

 // Check to see if payload has CRC
         if (RxDoneIgnoreIfCrcMissing)
         {
            byte regHopChannel = this.Rfm9XLoraModem.ReadByte((byte)Registers.RegHopChannel);
            if ((regHopChannel & (byte)RegHopChannelFlags.CrcOnPayload) != (byte)RegHopChannelFlags.CrcOnPayload)
            {
               return;
            }
         }

         // Check to see if payload CRC is valid
         if (RxDoneIgnoreIfCrcInvalid)
         {
            if (((byte)IrqFlags & (byte)RegIrqFlagsMask.PayLoadCrcErrorMask) == (byte)RegIrqFlagsMask.PayLoadCrcErrorMask)
            {
               return;
            }
         }

The conversion of the payload from an array of bytes to a string for display stopped failing with an exception. When I had a number of clients running up to 10% of the messages were getting corrupted.

Rfm9xLoRaDevice NetMF LNA

While fixing up the Signal to Noise Ratio(SNR) and Received Signal Strength Indication(RSSI) in a previous posts. I noted the Low Noise Amplifier(LNA) had High Frequency(LF) and Low Frequency settings.

First step was to update the initialise method parameter list (the parameter list is huge but for most scenarios the defaults are fine)

 public void Initialise(RegOpModeMode regOpModeAfterInitialise, // RegOpMode
       double frequency = FrequencyDefault, // RegFrMsb, RegFrMid, RegFrLsb
         bool paBoost = false, byte maxPower = RegPAConfigMaxPowerDefault, byte outputPower = RegPAConfigOutputPowerDefault, // RegPaConfig
         bool ocpOn = true, byte ocpTrim = RegOcpOcpTrimDefault, // RegOcp
         RegLnaLnaGain lnaGain = LnaGainDefault, bool lnaBoost = false, // RegLna
         RegModemConfigBandwidth bandwidth = RegModemConfigBandwidthDefault, RegModemConfigCodingRate codingRate = RegModemConfigCodingRateDefault, RegModemConfigImplicitHeaderModeOn implicitHeaderModeOn = RegModemConfigImplicitHeaderModeOnDefault, //RegModemConfig1
         RegModemConfig2SpreadingFactor spreadingFactor = RegModemConfig2SpreadingFactorDefault, bool txContinuousMode = false, bool rxPayloadCrcOn = false,
         ushort symbolTimeout = SymbolTimeoutDefault,
         ushort preambleLength = PreambleLengthDefault,
         byte payloadLength = PayloadLengthDefault,
         byte payloadMaxLength = PayloadMaxLengthDefault,
         byte freqHoppingPeriod = FreqHoppingPeriodDefault,
         bool lowDataRateOptimize = false, bool agcAutoOn = false,
         byte ppmCorrection = ppmCorrectionDefault,
         RegDetectOptimizeDectionOptimize detectionOptimize = RegDetectOptimizeDectionOptimizeDefault,
         bool invertIQ = false,
         RegisterDetectionThreshold detectionThreshold = RegisterDetectionThresholdDefault,
         byte syncWord = RegSyncWordDefault)
      {

The SX127X RegLNA configuration code and the SetMode method required modification

if ((lnaGain != LnaGainDefault) || (lnaBoost != false))
         {
            byte regLnaValue = (byte)lnaGain;
            if (lnaBoost)
            {
               if (Frequency > RFMidBandThreshold)
               {
                  regLnaValue |= RegLnaLnaBoostHfOn;
               }
               else
               {
                  regLnaValue |= RegLnaLnaBoostLfOn;
               }
            }
            Rfm9XLoraModem.WriteByte((byte)Registers.RegLna, regLnaValue);
         }
public void SetMode(RegOpModeMode mode)
      {
         byte regOpModeValue;

         regOpModeValue = RegOpModeLongRangeModeLoRa;
         regOpModeValue |= RegOpModeAcessSharedRegLoRa;
         if (Frequency > RFMidBandThreshold)
         {
            regOpModeValue |= RegOpModeLowFrequencyModeOnHighFrequency;
         }
         else
         {
            regOpModeValue |= RegOpModeLowFrequencyModeOnLowFrequency;
         }
         regOpModeValue |= (byte)mode;
         Rfm9XLoraModem.WriteByte((byte)Registers.RegOpMode, regOpModeValue);
      }

Having to convert all the Flags & masks from binary to hexadecimal values was a bit painful

// RegDioMapping1
[Flags]
public enum RegDioMapping1
{
Dio0RxDone = 0x00,
Dio0TxDone = 0x40,
Dio0CadDone = 0x80,
}

The HF & LF differences where not obviously handled in Arduino-LoRa library and the Semtech LoRaMac node GitHub repository wasn’t so helpful.

When I stress tested this code the UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetChars kept on throwing exceptions as the messages were corrupt. Need to add CRC presence and validity checking to next version.

 static void rfm9XDevice_OnDataReceived(float packetSnr, int packetRssi, int rssi,  byte[] data)
{
   try
   {
      string messageText = new string(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetChars(data));

      Debug.Print(DateTime.UtcNow.ToString("HH:MM:ss") + "-Rfm9X PacketSnr " + packetSnr.ToString("F1") + " Packet RSSI " + packetRssi + "dBm RSSI " + rssi + "dBm = " + data.Length + " byte message " + @"""" + messageText + @"""") ;
   }
   catch (Exception ex)
   {
      Debug.Print(ex.Message);
   }
}

Rfm9xLoRaDevice NetMF SNR and RSSI

The signal to noise Ratio (SNR) and Received Signal Strength Indication(RSSI) for inbound messages required reading values from three registers
•RegPktSnrValue
•RegPktRssiValue
•RegRssiValue

I had to modify the OnDataRecievedHandler method signature so the values could be returned

 public delegate void OnDataRecievedHandler(float packetSnr, int packetRssi, int rssi, byte[] data);

I was inspired by the RSSI adjustment approach used in the Arduino-LoRa library

// Get the RSSI HF vs. LF port adjustment section 5.5.5 RSSI and SNR in LoRa Mode
float packetSnr = this.Rfm9XLoraModem.ReadByte((byte)Registers.RegPktSnrValue) * 0.25f;

int rssi = this.Rfm9XLoraModem.ReadByte((byte)Registers.RegRssiValue);
if (Frequency > RFMidBandThreshold)
{
  rssi = RssiAdjustmentHF + rssi;
}
else
{
  rssi = RssiAdjustmentLF + rssi;
}

int packetRssi = this.Rfm9XLoraModem.ReadByte((byte)Registers.RegPktRssiValue);
if (Frequency > RFMidBandThreshold)
{
  packetRssi = RssiAdjustmentHF + packetRssi;
}
else
{
  packetRssi = RssiAdjustmentLF + packetRssi;
}

OnDataReceived?.Invoke( packetSnr, packetRssi, rssi, messageBytes);

The values displayed in the Rfm9xLoRaDeviceClient application looked reasonable, but will need further checking

00:06:14-Rfm9X PacketSnr 9.8 Packet RSSI -47dBm RSSI -111dBm = 28 byte message "Hello W10 IoT Core LoRa! 182"
Sending 20 bytes message Hello NetMF LoRa! 38
Transmit-Done
00:06:24-Rfm9X PacketSnr 9.8 Packet RSSI -48dBm RSSI -111dBm = 28 byte message "Hello W10 IoT Core LoRa! 181"
Sending 20 bytes message Hello NetMF LoRa! 39
Transmit-Done
00:06:34-Rfm9X PacketSnr 9.8 Packet RSSI -47dBm RSSI -112dBm = 28 byte message "Hello W10 IoT Core LoRa! 180"
Sending 20 bytes message Hello NetMF LoRa! 40
Transmit-Done
00:06:44-Rfm9X PacketSnr 10.0 Packet RSSI -48dBm RSSI -111dBm = 28 byte message "Hello W10 IoT Core LoRa! 179"

 

RFM9X.NetMF on Github

After a month of posts the source code of V0.9 of my RFM9X/SX127X library is on GitHub. I included all of the source for my test harness and proof of concept(PoC) applications so other people can follow along with “my learning experience”.

I need to trial with some more hardware, frequency bands, variety of clients, initialisation configurations and backport the last round of fixes from my .Net library.

The simplest possible application .NetMF using the new library

/---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Copyright (c) August 2018, devMobile Software
//
// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
// You may obtain a copy of the License at
//
//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
//
// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
// limitations under the License.
//
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
namespace devMobile.IoT.NetMF.Rfm9X.Client
{
using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading;
using devMobile.IoT.NetMF.ISM;
using Microsoft.SPOT;
using SecretLabs.NETMF.Hardware.Netduino;

public class Program
{
public static void Main()
{
Rfm9XDevice rfm9XDevice = new Rfm9XDevice(Pins.GPIO_PIN_D10, Pins.GPIO_PIN_D9, Pins.GPIO_PIN_D2);
byte MessageCount = Byte.MinValue;

rfm9XDevice.Initialise( Rfm9XDevice.RegOpModeMode.ReceiveContinuous, 915000000, paBoost: true, rxPayloadCrcOn: true);
rfm9XDevice.OnDataReceived += rfm9XDevice_OnDataReceived;
rfm9XDevice.OnTransmit += rfm9XDevice_OnTransmit;

while (true)
{
string messageText = "Hello NetMF LoRa! " + MessageCount.ToString();
MessageCount += 1;
byte[] messageBytes = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(messageText);
Debug.Print("Sending " + messageBytes.Length + " bytes message " + messageText);
rfm9XDevice.SendMessage(messageBytes);

Thread.Sleep(10000);
}
}

static void rfm9XDevice_OnTransmit()
{
Debug.Print("Transmit-Done");
}

static void rfm9XDevice_OnDataReceived(byte[] data)
{
try
{
string messageText = new string(UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetChars(data));

Debug.Print("Received " + data.Length.ToString() + " byte message " + messageText);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Debug.Print(ex.Message);
}
}
}
}

// Dirty hack for Rosyln
namespace System.Diagnostics
{
public enum DebuggerBrowsableState
{
Never = 0,
Collapsed = 2,
RootHidden = 3
}
}

I need to do more testing (especially of the initialisation options) and will add basic device addressing soon so my field gateway will only see messages which it is interested in.

Rfm9xLoRaDevice LNA gain revisited

While fixing up the Signal to Noise Ratio(SNR) and Received Signal Strength Indication(RSSI) in a previous post I noted the Low Noise Amplifier(LNA) had High Frequency(LF) and Low Frequency settings.

First step was to update the initialise method parameter list (the parameter list is huge but for most values the defaults are fine)

		public void Initialise(RegOpModeMode modeAfterInitialise, // RegOpMode
			double frequency = FrequencyDefault, // RegFrMsb, RegFrMid, RegFrLsb
			bool rxDoneignoreIfCrcMissing = true, bool rxDoneignoreIfCrcInvalid = true,
			bool paBoost = false, byte maxPower = RegPAConfigMaxPowerDefault, byte outputPower = RegPAConfigOutputPowerDefault, // RegPaConfig
			bool ocpOn = true, byte ocpTrim = RegOcpOcpTrimDefault, // RegOcp
			RegLnaLnaGain lnaGain = LnaGainDefault, bool lnaBoostLF = false, bool lnaBoostHf = false, // RegLna
			RegModemConfigBandwidth bandwidth = RegModemConfigBandwidthDefault, RegModemConfigCodingRate codingRate = RegModemConfigCodingRateDefault, RegModemConfigImplicitHeaderModeOn implicitHeaderModeOn = RegModemConfigImplicitHeaderModeOnDefault, //RegModemConfig1
			RegModemConfig2SpreadingFactor spreadingFactor = RegModemConfig2SpreadingFactorDefault, bool txContinuousMode = false, bool rxPayloadCrcOn = false,
			ushort symbolTimeout = SymbolTimeoutDefault,
			ushort preambleLength = PreambleLengthDefault,
			byte payloadLength = PayloadLengthDefault,
			byte payloadMaxLength = PayloadMaxLengthDefault,
			byte freqHoppingPeriod = FreqHoppingPeriodDefault,
			bool lowDataRateOptimize = false, bool agcAutoOn = false,
			byte ppmCorrection = ppmCorrectionDefault,
			RegDetectOptimizeDectionOptimize detectionOptimize = RegDetectOptimizeDectionOptimizeDefault,
			bool invertIQ = false,
			RegisterDetectionThreshold detectionThreshold = RegisterDetectionThresholdDefault,
			byte syncWord = RegSyncWordDefault)
		{

which became

public void Initialise(RegOpModeMode modeAfterInitialise, // RegOpMode
	double frequency = FrequencyDefault, // RegFrMsb, RegFrMid, RegFrLsb
	bool rxDoneignoreIfCrcMissing = true, bool rxDoneignoreIfCrcInvalid = true,
	bool paBoost = false, byte maxPower = RegPAConfigMaxPowerDefault, byte outputPower = RegPAConfigOutputPowerDefault, // RegPaConfig
	bool ocpOn = true, byte ocpTrim = RegOcpOcpTrimDefault, // RegOcp
	RegLnaLnaGain lnaGain = LnaGainDefault, bool lnaBoost = false, // RegLna
	RegModemConfigBandwidth bandwidth = RegModemConfigBandwidthDefault, RegModemConfigCodingRate codingRate = RegModemConfigCodingRateDefault, RegModemConfigImplicitHeaderModeOn implicitHeaderModeOn = RegModemConfigImplicitHeaderModeOnDefault, //RegModemConfig1
	RegModemConfig2SpreadingFactor spreadingFactor = RegModemConfig2SpreadingFactorDefault, bool txContinuousMode = false, bool rxPayloadCrcOn = false,
	ushort symbolTimeout = SymbolTimeoutDefault,
	ushort preambleLength = PreambleLengthDefault,
	byte payloadLength = PayloadLengthDefault,
	byte payloadMaxLength = PayloadMaxLengthDefault,
	byte freqHoppingPeriod = FreqHoppingPeriodDefault,
	bool lowDataRateOptimize = false, bool agcAutoOn = false,
	byte ppmCorrection = ppmCorrectionDefault,
	RegDetectOptimizeDectionOptimize detectionOptimize = RegDetectOptimizeDectionOptimizeDefault,
	bool invertIQ = false,
	RegisterDetectionThreshold detectionThreshold = RegisterDetectionThresholdDefault,
	byte syncWord = RegSyncWordDefault)
{

Then in the code for configuring the RegLna the frequency band is checked

		// Set RegLna if any of the settings not defaults
			if ((lnaGain != LnaGainDefault) || (lnaBoost != false))
			{
				byte regLnaValue = (byte)lnaGain;
				if (lnaBoost)
				{
					if (Frequency > RFMidBandThreshold)
					{
						regLnaValue |= RegLnaLnaBoostHfOn;
					}
					else
					{
						regLnaValue |= RegLnaLnaBoostLfOn;
					}
				}
				RegisterManager.WriteByte((byte)Registers.RegLna, regLnaValue);
			}

The HF & LF differences where not obviously handled in Arduino-LoRa library and the Semtech LoRaMac node GitHub repository wasn’t so helpful this time.

Not so confident with these changes need to test with my 434MHz devices

Rfm9xLoRaDevice SNR and RSSI revisited

The magic numbers for the high frequency(HF) vs. low frequency(LF) adjustment bugged me

int rssi = this.RegisterManager.ReadByte((byte)Registers.RegRssiValue);
if (Frequency < 868E6)
	rssi = -164 + rssi; // LF output port
else
	rssi = -157 + rssi; // HF output port

int packetRssi = this.RegisterManager.ReadByte((byte)Registers.RegPktRssiValue);
if (Frequency < 868E6)
	packetRssi = -164 + rssi; // LF output port
else
	packetRssi = -157 + rssi; // HF output port

After some searching I ended up at the Semetch LoRaMac node github repository. In that code they had a number of constants which looked like a better approach.

if( SX1276.Settings.Channel > RF_MID_BAND_THRESH )
{
   rssi = RSSI_OFFSET_HF + SX1276Read( REG_LR_RSSIVALUE );
}
else
{
   rssi = RSSI_OFFSET_LF + SX1276Read( REG_LR_RSSIVALUE );
}

I also fixed a couple of bugs I noticed with the maths and the code now looks like this

int rssi = this.RegisterManager.ReadByte((byte)Registers.RegRssiValue);
if (Frequency > RFMidBandThreshold)
   rssi = RssiAdjustmentHF + rssi;
else
   rssi = RssiAdjustmentLF + rssi;

int packetRssi = this.RegisterManager.ReadByte((byte)Registers.RegPktRssiValue);
if (Frequency > RFMidBandThreshold)
   packetRssi = RssiAdjustmentHF + packetRssi;
else
   packetRssi = RssiAdjustmentLF + packetRssi;

This has also got me thing about how RegLna – LnaBoostLf/LnaBoostHf should be handled as well.