California-based Semtech has announced a joint initiative with Lacuna Space to increase coverage and resilience of LoRaWan using IoT-to-satellite connectivity.

Lacuna Space is a UK company that provides low-cost global connections to sensors and mobile equipment. The Lacuna network is a tracking and detection service for short data messages. The network works everywhere, and all the time, so companies can focus on using data from sensors or tracking the status of moving assets.

In areas of the world without cellular or wifi signals, satellites fill connectivity gaps, especially in hard-to-reach areas. Since it is affordable and simple to install, LoRaWan is a standard that can bridge terrestrial networks with worldwide satellite connectivity to offer low power ubiquitous connectivity that fills this gap.

The collaboration is built on long-range frequency hopping spread spectrum (LR-FHSS), the latest addition to the LoRaWan standard.

“We now have trials and demonstrations underway in many countries and regions that were previously thought to be inaccessible to IoT,” said Rob Spurrett, CEO at Lacuna Space. “Our collaboration with Semtech and the enablement of its LR-FHSS device accelerates IoT adoption for a safer, more resilient and resource-efficient world. With this collaboration, we expect to begin commercial services within the first half of 2022.”

LR-FHSS is unique because it takes up less room on the network, which future-proofs capacity while maintaining low power consumption capabilities, which, in turn, enables affordable and simple satellite IoT platforms.

“The addition of LR-FHSS to the LoRaWan standard further increases capacity and resilience of ubiquitous connectivity,” said Marc Pégulu, vice president at Semtech. “Lacuna’s application of this affordable and simplified technology will further expand access to connection through their satellite technology.”

Semtech’s LoRa device-to-cloud platform is a globally adopted long range, low power offering for IoT applications, enabling the rapid development and deployment of low-power, cost-efficient and long-range IoT networks, gateways, sensors, modules and IoT services worldwide. Semtech’s LoRa devices provide the communication layer for the LoRaWan protocol, which is maintained by the LoRa Alliance, an open IoT alliance for LPWAN applications that has been used to deploy IoT networks in more than 100 countries.