Raspbeery Pi + IC880a TDoA

Gateways
1

Hi everyone,

Our company is working to build a IoT LoRa network for tracking proposes. So far we have been using the traditional setup of a Raspberry Pi + iC880a concentrator. And since the release of the Lora Geo Server server dropped, we wanted to implement TDoA support on our network.

I was wondering if it is possible to enable fine-timestamps support on the iC880a concentrator once we install a GPS receiver on it. Anyone tried this already?

Any help would be appreciated.

2

The fine-timestamp is not only dependent on the GPS synced time-source, but also depends on hardware which can define the RX timestamp in an accurate way, which the iC880a is not capable of.

3

So, even if we solder the GPS receiver on the PCB (which is a possibility on the iC880a), it would still be impossible to enable fine-timestamp support?

If not, are there any alternative multichannel concentrators compatible with the Raspberry Pi that also already have support for TDoA?

Thanks in advance.

4

So, even if we solder the GPS receiver on the PCB (which is a possibility on the iC880a), it would still be impossible to enable fine-timestamp support?

Correct. Looking at for example the Kerlink iBTS gateway hardware design (Semtech v2 reference design), you’ll see that it has a FPGA which handles the fine timestamp.