#305 Transfer a LoRa message through space to my PC before 2020?

before Christmas I got a package it contains this small module that should be capable of transmitting sensor data to a Laura satellite and last for a few month with this battery after my last experience with falsus at one I'm skeptical do you want to accompany me on the journey ready youtubers here is the guy with the Swiss accent with a new episode and fresh ideas around sensors and microcontrollers remember if you subscribe you will always sit in the first row we all were disappointed when fossa sat one did not work I would have loved to transfer Laura messages from a 20-dollar Center note by a satellite to my computer before the turn of the decade forces at one showed that many problems have to be solved before we can transfer a message by a satellite but let's have a quick look at who sent me this package this is the team of lacunae a start-up based in the UK many of the Laura veterans know Thomas from his contributions to Laura and his presentations at Laura conventions rob is a space veteran and knows how to put stuff into the orbit both co-founders were able to get the right partners for such a risky endeavor the European Space Agency and same take the producer of the Laura chips their goal is to make it simple to place sensors wherever you need them the main difference between lacunae and fossa system is that lacunae has to make money in the end even their service may not be used by many makers we can learn a lot because all their soft and hardware is open-source but which problems do we have to overcome to send messages via satellite the first one is the selection of the frequency used by the notes on earth if you use the is M band no licence is necessary and everybody can easily build their own note and use it on the other hand AIA same bands are heavily used this is no problem for our sensors or gateways because the line of sight is very limited usually they only can receive signals from a few hundred meters distance for a satellite this is completely different it has a footprint of thousands of kilometers or miles this means that it has a line of sight to most of the devices inside this footprint and it hears every signal with enough power to reach it and it is hard to filter the Lora signals of our small boards here on earth very bad this is while hakuna choose the 868 or 915 megahertz a SM bands which seemed to be less crowded than the 430 megahertz band used by foster systems and the antennas on 868 megahertz are also smaller as we all know Laura nodes have to be very low-power and should sleep as long as possible as we have seen in the video about Phocis at these small satellites move very fast the advantage you can cover nearly the whole world with one satellite which passes at least once each day but it is only visible for a few minutes if we want to sleep the note as long as possible it has to know when the satellite is visible the next time because it only has to wake up for the pass how can this be done but first let's have a look at what I got as Dave Jones from a eb block would say let's take it apart first we see a device and they lay on battery in a waterproof box if we have a closer look at the device we see an antenna plus a ground plane the antenna has a circular polarization and if we remove it we see a Laura module with a new sx 1262 chip au blocks gps receiver with a ridiculously small antenna and STM MPU and some additional chips one of those chips is important the AEC see 608 a secure element it can be used for encryption but I also ask you for license management so it will not be easy to hack these devices what is the purpose of a gps chip on board let's put it together and fire it up but of course not before we test it the antenna it has a very good performance between 868 and 915 megahertz important if we want to reach space with a few milli watt power I use the fully automated sketch for my test if we have a look at serial monitor we see why it needs its GPS receiver it acquires exact time and position and with this information and the flight data of the satellite the device is capable of calculating the next path with high precision if you are interested in this topic maybe you watch video number 302 as soon as it calculated the next path it sets a wake-up alarm and starts to sleep like the lap cat dishka this device also sleeps the whole day to save energy now I can put the device to the roof and do something different till the satellite pass in the evening I keep the laptop connected to see if something happens because the satellite acts as an ordinary TT end gateway I can set up my node as a device in the TT n console if everything goes right the messages will be collected and stored by the satellite if no ground station is available as soon as one is in its footprint it starts to download the messages and the ground station transfer them to teach in its now later in the afternoon I just want to check everything what is this I already got messages from my node this is impossible the next satellite pass is only in the evening let's check which gateway received the message aha a well-known number no satellite it is my own gateway of course the satellite node is in its reach so the clever bugger sends its messages through gateways if available like my smart phone which connects to the free of choice why fight to save on the mobile plan so back to other work now it is already evening let's check the satellite note plus the laptop on the roof fortunately it does not rain you saw it is really bad weather you know from your GPS systems that clouds are not good for radio waves to space will it work at least the elevation of the next satellite pass should be high so the distance to the satellite is short and may be offset the harsh weather conditions now it's around 9:55 p.m. and i'm keyed up i hope it will work the satellite should be visible now right above me unfortunately nothing happens the serial connection shows that the node sleeps like a teenager who should go to school in the morning the t TN console also does not show a message which is okay but the serial of the note should show at least a trial to do something very disappointing and now it even started to rain hopefully my pc did not get too wet the note should be rather waterproof again a disappointment this time i hoped the professional team would be able to develop at least a working system obviously it's too complicated to build such a system or laura is not the right technology for that let's mail thomas the facts i hope he is not too disappointed because he helped me during his holidays but what does he write back he saw messages from me coming from the satellite great it worked incredible they are just stuck somewhere between the ground station and my t TN console so i have to wait a few minutes to see if it's true and thomas also wrote what happened the serial connection sometimes does not wake up correctly and does not work but obviously the note woke up and transferred its message and now I got more messages let's check the Gateway this message again came through my gateway because I wanted to understand the code I took the note down to my lab and connected it to my PC then it sent a message from there but the message before the gateway part looks different this is definitely not my gateway it is the satellite it does not show our SSI or signal-to-noise ratio but it shows the values measured by my note close to 10 degrees centigrade and high humidity these are the values from the roof I'm so happy that I got the first message via satellite with all that happens now the next decade definitely will be a decade of space invasion like the 1900 and 60s and I am part of it transmitting messages with a $20 note every maker can build because lacunae will provide the code as well as the diagrams with an open-source license the only thing they need is a little money for each message transferred by the satellite we now have the proof that Laura satellites work if Julian's foster Sat 2 is successful we even will be able to transfer our messages free of charge summarized we should be clear the satellites of Julian and Laguna are different animals that use the same technology to transfer messages to get enough capacity for example lacunae is capable of receiving many nodes in parallel forces at one only has one channel and for the moment you need an amateur license to use force asset this is not the case for lacunae but they delivered the proof that Laura technology can be used to build cheap nodes and transfer messages via satellites for the moment the lacunae satellite still is in a test phase I am sure we will hear when this will change in the meantime I wish you a happy 2020 I hope this video was useful or at least interesting for you if true please consider supporting the channel to secure its future existence you find the links in description thank you bye

Channel: Andreas Spiess

Views: 84,173

Rating: 4.9648762 out of 5

Keywords: arduino, arduino project, beginners, diy, do-it-yourself, eevblog, electronics, esp32, esp32 datasheet, esp32 project, esp32 tutorial, esp32 weather station, esp8266, esp8266 datasheet, esp8266 project, greatscott, guide, hack, hobby, how to, iot, lorawan, nodemcu, project, simple, smart home, ttgo, wemos, wifi, lora, lora satellite, satellite, lacuna, fossa, fossasat

Id: n911zTNIn8E

Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 29 2019