I do not have access to the original paper, but I would want to see how this compares to 802.11ah "WiFi HaLow".
(edit) OK, I got a copy from ResearchGate, and I misunderstood! I had failed to grok the part of the article where LoRa is now supported by the sx128x (as opposed to the sx126x) on 2.4GHz.
> In this article, we introduce a new algorithmic framework called WiLo, designed to enable directional communication from Wi-Fi to LoRa, which employs signal emulation techniques to enable off-the-shelf Wi-Fi hardware to produce a valid 2.4 GHz LoRa waveform.
So, critically, and as far as I can tell this isn't in the summary article, this is purely unidirectional; and so, this isn't about being able to build a network that upgrades the range of WiFi with some tradeoffs: this is about being able to send data from existing WiFi hardware to existing LoRa hardware using a relatively minimal set of changes (though I still don't appreciate how this would practically be done to the existing hardware, and they apparently only simulated this with software-defined radio).
> The core innovation of WiLo lies in the signal emulation technique used to generate a valid 2.4 GHz LoRa waveform. Through sophisticated signal processing algorithms, WiLo transforms the standard Wi-Fi signals into LoRa-like wave-forms, while ensuring compliance with the LoRa modulation specifications. This enables the LoRa hardware to decode WiFi signals without requiring any modifications to the hardware itself. The emulation of LoRa waveforms is achieved by carefully manipulating the parameters of the Wi-Fi signals, such as the modulation index, spreading factor, and BW, to closely match the characteristics of LoRa modulation.
> We would like to emphasize that WiLo is directly supported among commodity devices, and the USRP-B210 devices are used only for evaluation purposes to measure low-level PHY information, which is inaccessible by commodity devices. For example, a commodity Wi-Fi card such as the Atheros AR2425 can replace USRP-B210 devices as the sender.
I want to highlight that this paper should be read in the same spirit as "guess what! we figured out how to cross-compile C into JavaScript using Emscripten" came across to everyone back in the day before our modern viewpoint where WebAssembly was taken for granted.
It doesn't mean that this should be used, or should be the standard, but it absolutely does mean that this is possible to do within the terms of the 802.11g radio protocol spec, which no one had really realized and done the heavy lifting to demonstrate yet.
> So, critically, and as far as I can tell this isn't in the summary article, this is purely unidirectional; and so, this isn't about being able to build a network that upgrades the range of WiFi with some tradeoffs: this is about being able to send data from existing WiFi hardware to existing LoRa hardware using a relatively minimal set of changes (though I still don't appreciate how this would practically be done to the existing hardware, and they apparently only simulated this with software-defined radio).
This leads me to believe you could flip a switch and turn entire swaths of access points into a broadcast fabric for LoRa? Wifi networks meet software defined radio a bit.
OK, we have a Wi-Fi device that can talk to a LoRa device at a large distance. Now replace the LoRa device with another Wi-Fi device that talks the LoRa protocol. If mission is not accomplished, what's missing?
> (though I still don't appreciate how this would practically be done to the existing hardware, and they apparently only simulated this with software-defined radio).
It is my understanding that most modern baseband chips can effectively be considered "software defined radios", as most of the modulation/demodulation is performed by the firmware. While the researchers appear to have used a USRP (a dedicated SDR platform), it is conceivable their scheme could be accommodated in the firmware.
As far as I know, transmitting and receiving Wi-Fi traffic will never be possible using GNUradio, because you cannot meet the maximum 16 microsecond latency for sending an acknowledgment after you decoded a packet successfully.
I'm not sure what you are asking it should be comparably priced to, but USRPs are on the higher end of the cost spectrum. Caveat: my experience here is extremely limited, but at one point I too was looking into affordable GNURadio-compatible SDR hardware that could transmit and receive (as opposed to the RTL-SDRs that can only receive) and I came across options like HackRF and LimeSDR.
However, knowledgeable people also pointed out that these cheaper options make tradeoffs in the RF hardware that make it harder to get reliable performance for non-trivial uses. Their opinion was that the time saved in working around those limitations was well worth the extra cost of a USRP.
The BladeRF and ADALM-PLUTO are cheaper alternatives to the entry level (B2xx) USRPs. They use the same Analog Devices MIMO chip as the USRP, so are similar in capability.
Hmm. LoRa uses up-and downchirps. That would be pretty difficult to do with a WiFi radio that's meant to stick to predefined channels. But the radio is probably some kind of sdr.
(edit) OK, I got a copy from ResearchGate, and I misunderstood! I had failed to grok the part of the article where LoRa is now supported by the sx128x (as opposed to the sx126x) on 2.4GHz.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383692369_WiLo_Long...
> In this article, we introduce a new algorithmic framework called WiLo, designed to enable directional communication from Wi-Fi to LoRa, which employs signal emulation techniques to enable off-the-shelf Wi-Fi hardware to produce a valid 2.4 GHz LoRa waveform.
So, critically, and as far as I can tell this isn't in the summary article, this is purely unidirectional; and so, this isn't about being able to build a network that upgrades the range of WiFi with some tradeoffs: this is about being able to send data from existing WiFi hardware to existing LoRa hardware using a relatively minimal set of changes (though I still don't appreciate how this would practically be done to the existing hardware, and they apparently only simulated this with software-defined radio).
> The core innovation of WiLo lies in the signal emulation technique used to generate a valid 2.4 GHz LoRa waveform. Through sophisticated signal processing algorithms, WiLo transforms the standard Wi-Fi signals into LoRa-like wave-forms, while ensuring compliance with the LoRa modulation specifications. This enables the LoRa hardware to decode WiFi signals without requiring any modifications to the hardware itself. The emulation of LoRa waveforms is achieved by carefully manipulating the parameters of the Wi-Fi signals, such as the modulation index, spreading factor, and BW, to closely match the characteristics of LoRa modulation.
> We would like to emphasize that WiLo is directly supported among commodity devices, and the USRP-B210 devices are used only for evaluation purposes to measure low-level PHY information, which is inaccessible by commodity devices. For example, a commodity Wi-Fi card such as the Atheros AR2425 can replace USRP-B210 devices as the sender.