I started using www.cloudRF.com for network planning. They offer a free 30 Day trial and they have some LoRa specific settings. However, I am not 100% sure I do everything “by the book”:
My general idea is to check gateway locations. Hence, I use the gateway data as transmitter (height above ground, antenna type, gain etc), but as I am interested in uplink coverage, I do use the max. allowed sending power of 14dBm allowed for end devices here in Europe. Is that the correct approach? (see pictures)
There are some LoRa specific settings. In the receiver, you can set the unit of measurement to “Bit Error Rate” and selet LoRa as Modulation. In there, you can select the different spreading factors. Has anyone worked with this feature yet? (see 3rd picture)
Hi, I would like to propose to look in to the workshop papers I provided with workshop radio planning which I presented at The Things Conference last January. This is a good starting point.
The problem is that in many cases tools are oriented to “normal” (cellular) networks where downlink is the standard. I do not know how to revert this in CloudRF.
In digital communications, BER is the right metric. However, in LoRaWAN it is not simple to evaluate coverage this way. I would recommend estimating the field strength that will deliver the service quality you are looking for and then evaluate this field strength in your analysis.
The workshop papers can be of help in setting up your link budget.
