MinFarm LoRaWAN Satellite Gateway

The MF 470 is an outdoor LoRaWAN Gateway for remote locations. 

• LOW POWER: The MF 470 can be powered by a solar panel that is 80% smaller than legacy gateway installations 
• GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY: The MF 470 provides low cost global connectivity via cellular or satellite to LoRaWAN sensors in remote locations
• RELIABLE: The MF-470 is an outdoor unit with an IP-67 water and rain proof certification and temperature ranges starting at -30 to +70 celsius (Talk to MinFarm about battery selection options for low temperature)
• LOW MAINTENANCE: The MF 470 has a range of remote management tools for satellite airtime, LoRaWAN telemetry and power that remove the need to site visits. 
• GLOBALLY CERTIFIED: The MF 470 is certified globally for Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and Brazil

LoRaWAN 

• The MF 470 forwards uplinks to a wide range of cloud services including a LoRaWAN Network Server (LNS), HTTP(S) endpoints and AWS IoT 
• The MF 470 supports LoRaWAN 1.0.x sensors 
• The MF 470 supports a wide range of LoRa channel bands including EU868, IN865, AU915, US915, AS923 and KR920 
• The MF 470 has an 8-channel capacity 
• The MF 470 contains GNSS support for LoRa Packet Time Stamping 
• The MF 470 supports deep packet inspection to achieve low-latency response to sensor data 

MF 470 Low Power Mode

The MF 470 continuously monitors uplink schedules and learns which uplinks require acknowledgements. The MF 470 contains a programmable power board (MFTurbo-Energy) with two independent relays capable of switching the LoRaWAN gateway and associated communication equipment off during periods when LoRaWAN sensors are not active. In this way, it never misses an important uplink and the LoRaWAN sensors run without interruption,  while the MF 470 achieves an extremely low average power consumption. (Note: This low power mode does not support event based uplinks from LoRaWAN sensors).

Components

• MF 200 LoRaWAN Gateway 
• MFTurbo-Energy programmable power board
• IP-67 Enclosure
• Victron BlueSolar PWM
• LoRa Omnidirectional Antenna (8dBi, 0.8m) 
• Enclosure Pole Mount 
• Solar Panel Pole Mount 
• LoRa Antenna Pole Mount 
• Solar Panel to Enclosure Cable (5m) 
• LoRa Antenna Cable (5m)

Note: The MF 470 supports a wide range of solar panel, battery and back-haul internet connectivity options including satellite terminals. These options can be ordered separately from MinFarm or sourced locally by the customer.

20 LoRaWAN sensors / Daily updates

• 0.5 PSH: 100W solar array
• 1 PSH: 40W solar array
• 3 PSH: 20W solar array

2 day UPS battery: 12V 3.2 Ah

Winter Peak Sun Hours (kWh/m2/day)

Contact the MinFarm engineering team to discuss what solar panel and battery solution is right for your LoRaWAN deployment here

The MF 470 provides satellite data acceleration to dramatically reduce the payload size and management traffic of sensor uplinks transmitted over the satellite link. This means in practice that OpEX between 1 - 5 USD per sensor per month with 24 uplinks a day can be achieved depending on which satellite backhaul option is used, the number of sensors deployed and data airtime package purchased. The MF 470 has three variants that allow different satellite and cellular backhaul options from anywhere in the world. Here is a basic overview of the differences in the satellite backhaul options and why you should choose one over the other for a particular installation, but please contact the MinFarm team for a more in depth conversation about what choice might be best for your projects.

SatCom option 1: Inmarsat IsatData Pro

Strengths: 

• Near global coverage (excluding extreme latitudes and poles)
• Low CapEX
• Robust land, vehicle, maritime antenna 
• Suitable data capacity and satellite airtime packages for small sensor deployments

SatCom option 2: Inmarsat BGAN M2M

Strengths: 

• Near global coverage (excluding extreme latitudes and poles)
• Cellular first with satellite fallback option
• Suitable data capacity and lowest per sensor costs for large sensor deployments