How it works

LoRaWAN is a single hop WSN, even if LoRa Alliance has developed the relay feature to circumvent the problem of communication with nodes located far from the gateway, in terms of link budget.
Nevertheless, LoRaWAN remains a true star network, where each node is isolated within a network of several gateways which can all receive the same message; in ORAMA-Net, each ON-Node is attached to a single ON-Spot within a network of ON-Nodes. One of the benefits of this strategy is that the relay feature is native to LoRa Multi-Hop, therefore not limited to a dedicated device but part of the DNA of each ON-Node whatever the function of the attached sensor or actuator; a simple temperature sensor can act as a relay for a pressure sensor. Another benefit is that ORAMA-Net does not require a Network Server, reducing the complexity and costs of deployment; ON-Spot gateway connects directly to the user Application Server without intermediary backend service to maintain and to pay for.

Thanks to the very low bandwidth used by system messaging, an ORAMA-Net cluster can reach up to 64K ON-Nodes. For a 20% network load and with full aggregation, ON-Spot gateway can receive up to 192,000 messages of 50 payload bytes per day; this is one message per ON-Node each 8 hours for a cluster of 64K ON-Nodes, and each 7.5 minutes for 1K ON-Nodes. Scalability also relies on security: ORAMA-Net is private and protected by a unique 256-bit PNK (Private Network Key) assigned to a registered owner; knowing since, several clusters belonging to the same owner can be distributed worldwide.

A large majority of solutions systematically focus on the individual consumption of the connected object, which is undoubtedly important, but without mentioning that of the infrastructure made up of gateways or base stations on the one hand, and network servers on the other. ORAMA-Net thinks globally and considers all consumptions to make it the best system on the market in terms of impact and carbon footprint; not only do connected objects consume little, but the infrastructure necessary for operation is deliberately frugal. Like mesh, LoRa Multi-Hop system must manage the additional consumption linked to the relay activity of the nodes close to the gateway; this is the funneling effect and ORAMA-Net uses message aggregation to limit the impact of this activity (typical 30% reduction in autonomy for rank 1 nodes). The balance is reversed in an LPWAN system where these are the distant nodes which show battery depletion most quickly; given that there are potentially more distant nodes than close nodes to the gateway, there will therefore be more batteries to replace in an LPWAN than in an LoRa Multi-Hop.

With LPWAN solutions, it is not possible to join a node at any time; you must first wait for the node to connect to the server to be able to send it an instruction. Unless you schedule dummy messages sending regularly, which will dramatically increase device consumption, descending commands will expose high latencies and the system will not be responsive. In ORAMA-Net, the nodes are cyclically listening on a dedicated channel, using our ultra-low power WOR (Wake On Radio) process (25µA.h as typical floor consumption), and the result is that the latency between ON-Spot and any ON-Node in the network is less than or equal to 20 seconds.

To our knowledge, there is no solution of this type on the market, and this is another originality of ORAMA-Net; so, the question is why such a choice?

The 1st reason relates to security; the best location from the point of view of radio coverage is rarely the best location for protecting the device against theft, damage and corruption. With ON-Spot, only the tiny antenna part of the gateway is exposed and accessible from outdoor.

The 2nd reason relates to certain use cases where it is vital to reach the objects to be connected in depth; with ON-Spot, via a simple standard ethernet cable, it is possible to separate the gateway controller from the active antenna by more than 300 meters.