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 work presented here demonstrates a highly robust and tested LoRa networking hardware reference design to meet the needs of the embedded networking company OWL Integrations. The hardware presented integrated a unique combination of features and design choices. The detailing of its unique design is potentially of use to others for use in fielded battery powered terrestrial sensor networking hardware utilizing LoRa. Also, the terrestrial hardware presented is shown to have the capability to support command and control (C2) LoRa links in low-earth orbit beyond terrestrial systems. The design presented has a more U.S. centric component bill-of-materials (BOM), with the ability to be cost competitive within the broader market. The hardware excels in its ability to support long-range LoRa links with a proven highly sensitive receiver integration design that was validated through a novel automated distributed field-testing system. All of this and more is discussed and extensively documented throughout this thesis.

Over the last 50 years computing has continued to become denser, more power efficient and cheaper. In parallel the advancement in process technology has enabled the offering of an increasing variety of environmental sensors and RF communication systems that function at low power and in a small form factor. The increase in the low- power capability of computing, sensing and communications, in conjunction with the increases of battery energy densities over the last twenty years has enabled the development of deployable low-power mesh sensor communications networks for disaster relief, environmental monitoring, in-orbit command and control, and security. One of the main radio communication technologies employed in these networks is LoRa, a Chirped Spread Spectrum (CSS) modulated radio system developed by Semtech.

One of the companies in the market developing these novel low-power networking systems with LoRa is OWL Integrations. OWL currently utilizes commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) electronics to underpin their networking solutions. To address concerns related to cost, reliability, and trust in their supply chains, OWL has been sponsoring a variety of projects to develop new hardware to underpin their networks. Work presented here is has the goal of bringing advancements, in the design and study of new LoRa networking hardware to support OWL’s needs.

In this work, the development and design of a two-revision evolution of a terrestrial, Li-Ion battery powered LoRa networking device called Quacker Advanced Development (QuAD) is presented that fits these needs of OWL. Also presented along with the design are the details of its fabrication and its initial characterization. All of QuAD’s major subsystems and integration design details are dissected and their functional testing is presented. In addition to the testing of the QuAD design, a preliminary analysis of QuAD’s bill-of-materials (BOM) is completed, demonstrating a design consisting of a more U.S. centric supply chain within OWL’s price requirements.

In addition to QuAD, the two-revision evolution and design of a sister device targeted for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) communications called Space QuAD (SQuAD) is presented. SQuAD is a LEO targeted LoRa hardware design that was integrated with Cal Poly’s Streamlined Accelerated Learning Experiment (SAL-E) 3U CubeSat bus. SQuAD was designed to support the studying of the robustness of LoRa communications for LEO operations. SAL-E with SQuAD were deployed into orbit on March 30th, 2026 on SpaceX’s Transporter-16 mission and has been successfully communicated with and operated via LoRa. The concept of operations (CONOPs) and constraints driving SQuAD’s design and successful operation with SAL-E on-orbit are presented. SQuAD’s hardware design and flight firmware design is discussed, in addition to the details of its fabrication and pre-flight validation test regime.

The LoRa link performance characterization of QuAD and SQuAD from field testing experiments is presented, showing the prior to launch, suspected capability to support LEO communications using these hardware designs. During the discussion of this link-budget field testing, a newly developed one-way-link automated distributed test system architecture is detailed that was developed to support QuAD and SQuAD’s link characterization.

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