TrackNet Inc. providing smart connectivity for IoT and Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWAN) has started to open source. The company now open sources the firmware updates over-the-air (FUOTA) portion of its end-device LoRaWAN stack to the LoRaWAN ecosystem.
The initiative is undertaken per the LoRaWAN standard and in conjunction with the LoRa Alliance technical committee. Firmware updates over-the-air are critical for ensuring return-on-investment (ROI) in IoT deployments. If a sensor needs to be tuned, reconfigured, or serviced by humans even just once after it has been deployed, all ROI is lost for most applications.
TrackNet is open sourcing the FUOTA portion of its end-device LoRaWAN stack which thereby enables sensor manufacturers to integrate the capability of large-scale FUOTA in LoRaWAN networks into their devices. The LoRa Alliance technical committee is standardizing how FUOTA will be done so sensors can connect into any LoRaWAN network with it as an option.
“We are excited to see TrackNet support the ecosystem by providing the components needed to enable FUOTA across all LoRaWAN networks. The TrackNet team has been instrumental in the definition of LoRaWAN from its infancy and continues with technical leadership in the market,” says Nicolas Sornin, inventor of LoRa and Co-Chairman of the LoRa Alliance Technical Committee.
TrackNet already has demonstrated the largest scale FUOTA to date by updating over 3,500 asset tracking devices at a single commercial deployment site more than twenty times. TrackNet further has already integrated all the capabilities for it into TrackCentral, its core network server, per the definition by the LoRa Alliance.
The FUOTA implementation uses compression, true delta encoding, forward error recovery, and cryptography with digital signatures so that arbitrary large payloads can be delivered efficiently over the network with minimum impact on normal operation.
FUOTA has become a critical feature for all LPWAN network deployments. In its absence, it becomes challenging to scale network deployments and ensure ROI. The open source code will be distributed and maintained on GitHub from 16th March onwards.
