Advanced TPC Implementation with Arduino

Hello LoRaWAN® and Thingpark

Step 7 - Create a Backend Application

In this step, you will:

– Create a backend application for testing purposes.

In order to display the information received from TPC, visit the Webhook website to create a web page that will show the data sent from your device using TPC’s service.

Visit the Webhook site, and automatically a page will be created for you to use to display the collected device data.
The unique web URL(*) can be used to view the data that was received from TPC.
Click here to copy the URL, which will be used for registration of the backend service at TPC. In our case, the URL of that unique page is: https://webhook.site/b89c8607-c56c-4ac3-a309-1b6d93e243ad
The received LoRaWAN® packets can be viewed here.

As a result of this step, your account is created on TPC, and the registration of your device is proceeded with.

* This is the unique URL, which was just created, and the only information you need to proceed.

Step 8 - Create TPC Account

In this step, you will:

– Create an account on the ThingPark Community portal(*).

In order to view the LoRaWAN® packets that you are going to send, you need a TPC account(*).

Click the Sign Up button to create an account for you.

Click the Register button to finalize the creation of your account.

As a result of this step, your account is created on TPC to be able to proceed with the registration of your device.

* If you already have a TPC account, you can skip this step.

Step 9 - Register Backend Application

In this step, you will:

– Create a connection on the ThingPark Community portal(*).

On the TPC portal, a connection is a link to an Application Server for backend processing. Creating a Connection instance amounts to define the target address of your application and the protocol.

Here we will use HTTP, but ThingPark supports many other protocols including proprietary protocols used by all leading IoT platforms. ThingPark can also decode the LoRaWAN® payload and adapt the content to a target platform (ontology mapping), but we will not use this more advanced service here.

Select Connections in order to access definitions.
Select Create to start the creation of the application definition.

Select https:// since we are going to use HTTPS as the transport protocol.

Give a name that is meaningful to you in the Name field.
Paste the URL that you copied in Step 7.
In our example, it was: https://webhook.site/b89c8607-c56c-4ac3-a309-1b6d93e243ad
Ensure that JSON is selected in the Content Type field.
Click CREATE to create a connection.

As a result of this step, your account is created on TPC, allowing your device to be registered.

* If you already have a backend application definition (i.e a connection) on TPC, you can skip this step.

Step 10 - Register Device to TPC

In this activity, you will:

– Access the TPC admin console
– Register your device using the DevEUI that you identified in Step 6.

In order to be able to receive and view the LoRaWAN® packets that you send with your device, it should be registered with TPC.

Access TPC from here .

Enter your TPC email and password to access the admin functions.

Click on the ThingPark Admin Console.

You now have access to the TPC control panel.
Click on Devices in the left menu.

Click on Create in the left menu.

Click on Generic in the menu.

Select LoRaWAN® 1.0.3 revA – class A, from the dropdown list for the Model field
Select EU863-870 in the dropdown list for the ISM Band field.
Give an arbitrary name to your EVB as Name field.
Enter the DevEUI of your device that was viewed in Step 6.
In our case, it is 34-38-34-35-34-38-34-35(*)
Select Over-the-Air-Activation (OTAA) with local Join Server from the drop-down list as Activation Mode field.
Enter an 8-digit hex number in the JoinEUI field. Please record that hex number, which will be necessary in the next step.
In our example, we used 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
Enter a 16-digit hex number in the AppKey(**) field. Please record the hex number, which will be necessary in the next step.
In our example, we used: 34-38-34-35-65-37-92-15-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
Select a connection from the drop-down list in the Connections field. In our case, webHookForMKR1310 was used.
Click the CREATE button in order to complete the provisioning of your Arduino MKRWAN 1310 device.

The device definition is created, and INITIALIZATION means that TPC did not receive any packets from the device. So, it is quite normal.

In this step, the device definition for your Arduino MKR WAN 1310 device is created. Now, TPC is waiting for your LoRaWAN® packets to be processed and forwarded to the connection (i.e., Webhook site) you defined.

* Note that AppKey should be kept in a safe environment and should not be shared with anybody. As you can guess, the AppKey shown above is not the real AppKey of the device definition.

** Notice that this DevEUI is not real and is shown as an example.

Step 11 - Send and Receive LoRaWAN® Packets

In this step, you will:

– Use the LoraSendAndReceive sketch.

– Edit Arduino_secrets.h to enter the device credentials that you had decided on in Step 10.

– Run the sketch to observe that your LoRaWAN® packet is sent to TPC.

Now, your environment is ready to send your first LoRaWAN® packet is sent to TPC. For this purpose, you are going to use the example(*) sketch supplied by the MKRWAN library.

In order to be able to receive and view the LoRaWAN® packets that you send with your device, it should be registered with TPC.