A Cloud RAN Architecture for LoRa

This article deals with a cloud radio access network (CRAN) architecture for the LoRa system. In the suggested design, the gateway embeds a limited remote radio head (RRH), including the analog RF part, the digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion, and the digital front end (DFE). The other LoRa network functions, including the physical (PHY) layer, the LoRaWAN medium access control layer, and the application and customer servers, are implemented as cloud resources. This approach leads to a flexible RAN that is robust to the variations of capacity needs. Furthermore, it allows us to test very specific LoRa features, such as detection or demodulation, while bypassing others, including the hardware RRH. The methodology and tools we used to deploy a LoRa CRAN are detailed, and results of the performance indicator (CPU load, memory consumption) are provided.