Dual band opens gateway to smart cities research

A research collaboration between the Australian Smart Cities Consortium (ASCC), the Connected Cities Project and Internet of Things (IoT) company Meshed, has led to the creation and launch of a world-first dual band LoRaWAN gateway, that simultaneously supports both Australian and Asian standard bandwidths.

This new technology will allow these IoT initiatives to leverage the interoperability, scalability, and security of LoRaWAN to operate in the Asia-Pacific marketplace, more efficiently and more cheaply than operating dual overlapping networks.

This game-changing, dual-band technology was developed by Meshed for the Adelaide Living Lab project, a foundation project of the Australian Smart Cities Consortium at the University of Adelaide and the Connected Cities Project, led by the City of Prospect, working in collaboration with the cities of Playford, Port Adelaide Enfield, Burnside and Campbelltown.

IoT technologies use Low Power Wide Area Networks (LoRaWAN) protocols to connect multiple “Smart” sensing devices inside a network of secure gateways to deliver data. In Australia, both AU915MHz (Australian standard) and AS923MHz (Asia standard) bands are available for use on LoRaWAN; however, devices are configured to a single band thus limiting their use. Incorporating the Australian and Asia Pacific bandwidths into our IoT gateways will support large-scale technical solutions in the Australian and Asian markets for Smart Technologies.

Access to an IoT platform that uses both Australian and Asia Pacific frequencies for LoRaWAN means the University’s Living Lab project will provide a one-of-its kind ‘plug and play’ research platform and global research facility and field test site for IoT solutions, including resource and food security, mobility and logistics, water and waste management, health and wellbeing, cybersecurity and defence.

For further details, please contact:
Living Lab project officer, Dr Catherine Grace: catherine.grace@adelaide.edu.au
or
Smart Cities Team: smartcities@adelaide.edu.au