Implementation and evaluation of a LoRaWAN infrastructure operating in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed band

This thesis presents the implementation and evaluation of a LoRaWAN 1.0.4 infrastructure operating in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed band, with particular emphasis on Class B downlink communication. The work is motivated by the prospective use of a dedicated control network to manage wireless microphones during large-scale broadcasting events, where the exchange of short commands and reception acknowledgements is more important than high data throughput. The infrastructure comprises an SX1280-based end device running the Semtech SWL2001 stack, a Semtech 2.4 GHz gateway connected to a Raspberry Pi host, and a ChirpStack backend deployed through Docker Compose. The principal contribution is the adaptation of Basics Station software to the SX1280-based gateway. This entails a new Radio Abstraction Layer (RAL), modifications to radio configuration and data-rate handling, and changes to timestamp management and time synchronisation. A GPS timing reference supports beacon transmission and Class B operation. The evaluation combines analytical time-on-air and latency calculations with logs collected from the network server, the gateway, and the end device. The recorded ping slots are spaced 0.96 s apart within the beacon window. For a single confirmed Class B downlink, the interval between server dispatch and the processing of the device acknowledgement is approximately 4.9 s. This shows that packet airtime alone does not account for the overall communication delay, which also depends on scheduling, ping-slot availability, device response time, and server processing. The results confirm the operation of the integrated infrastructure under the tested configuration and provide an initial assessment of Class B communication at 2.4 GHz