Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/3350
Date of Award
6-2026
Degree Name
MS in Electrical Engineering
Department/Program
Electrical Engineering
College
College of Engineering
Advisor
Dennis Derickson
Advisor Department
Electrical Engineering
Advisor College
College of Engineering
Abstract
The LoRa Modulation format was developed by SEMTECH in 2018 and has revolutionized terrestrial Internet of Things (IoT) networks. LoRa (Long Range) has been successfully demonstrated as a long-range, low-data-rate communication modulation format and packet protocol for low-power terrestrial applications. LoRa offers low power consumption, low cost, robust signal sensitivity, and long communication range. Recently, interest has grown in using LoRa communication in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite systems, especially for global IoT connectivity. Previous studies have investigated the theoretical feasibility and simulated the performance of LoRa satellite communication. Companies such as Lacuna Space have demonstrated the practical potential of LoRa-based satellite communications. However, there is still limited experimental flight data from operational LEO missions that is available in the research literature. This motivates further investigation into the behavior of LoRa links in real LEO environments. In this work, the robustness and feasibility of a LoRa communication link between a ground station and a LEO CubeSat are investigated by developing, testing, and deploying a flight-ready LoRa receiver payload, SQuAD (Space Quacker board Advanced Development). SQuAD is based on the architecture of the company OWL Integrations’ QuAD Radio and is currently flying aboard the California Polytechnic CubeSat Laboratory’s (CPCL) SAL-E CubeSat mission. A ground station (at 916 MHz) was designed and implemented to support uplink communication experiments and long-term post-launch data collection. My specific contributions to this project include SQuAD firmware verification testing, SQuAD-to-SAL-E integration and interface testing, development of the automated pass scheduling and packet transmission scripts for the OWL ground station, end-to-end system testing spanning the OWL ground station through the SQuAD payload and SAL-E spacecraft, and post-launch orbital data collection and analysis. The experimental results demonstrated successful LoRa communication between the ground station and the CubeSat in LEO using LoRa parameters with a spreading factor of 12 and 11 with a 125 kHz bandwidth, without any Doppler frequency compensation. Ongoing experiments continue to investigate the impact of configurable LoRa transmission parameters, including the spreading factor, packet success rates, and link robustness in LEO satellite applications.