LIBERIOT : FIRST CLOUD-BASED PLATFORM FOR OPEN RADIOS

iNUBO

Posted By: panStamp

We are proud to announce the imminent release of LIBERIOT, a cloud-middleware platform designed to provide wireless coverage, IP connectivity and interoperability between low-cost open wireless devices. LIBERIOT has been entirely been developed by iNUBO, a first class software company having worked in the IoT panorama for years. Now, the teamwork formed by iNUBO and panStamp is releasing what is probably the first IoT connectivity platform for low-cost radios.

The big thing about LIBERIOT is that it’s not another IoT monitoring Web with UI widgets. instead, LIBERIOT is more focused on RF <-> MQTT transcription, working as a kind of super gateway on top of a very low cost wireless infrastructure.

Any gateway connected to LIBERIOT provides wireless coverage for any compatible device, regardless of who the owner of the device is, forming in this way a worldwide wireless infrastructure. The more people decides to use LIBERIOT and assemble a gateway the better for the community.

As you may guess, we are also working on this low-cost infrastructure. Basic gateways are being designed around the ESP8266 SoC (do you remember this board?) along with some extra RF sensibility to achieve a better link budget than with standard radios. These gateways will act as simple packet forwarders between the wireless nodes and LIBERIOT. On the other hand, LIBERIOT does all the complex things about interpreting the wireless frames and building readable MQTT packets, that are finally being consumed by each user application.

Providing MQTT and HTTP API’s, LIBERIOT can be integrated with almost any existing IoT software, cloud platform or business management solution. We are already working on a set of sample integrations with Node-RED, that we will try to post in the next weeks.

Open source

LIBERIOT is totally open source. Gateways and end-nodes can be build around inexpensive hardware and connect between them worldwide thanks to the cloud middle-ware. On the low-power wireless side, all radios need to speak a common language, an open (yes, it NEEDS to be open) protocol capable to uniquely identify nodes around the globe. Challenging for an open project, isn’t it? No problem, we took our rock-proof SWAP protocol as a starting point and introduced some changes to make it global. The result is GWAP.

GWAP

Global Wireless Abstract Protocol was inspired on SWAP. However, unlike SWAP, GWAP focuses on wide network deployments where nodes can move all around and need to be uniquely identifiable by any gateway forming the LIBERIOT infrastructure. For this purpose, GWAP devices need to provide a unique 12-byte address. This address is then used by LIBERIOT to not only identify the device but also the developer and the functions provided by each device.

Like SWAP, GWAP also relies on Device Definition Files. The only difference is that these files are in JSON format and not XML. This approach has provided lots of benefits in terms of firmware complexity and communication efficiency for years so let’s keep this feature as well for GWAP.

What’s next?

We need now to form a community around LIBERIOT. If you already own a panStamp module or similar then we invite you to:

  • Take a look at the GWAP stack
  • Try out some of the available sample codes on your panStamp modules or Arduino platforms.
  • Build a basic ESP8266-based gateway following this schematic, flashing this code and following the configuration guide.
  • Open an account on the LIBERIOT backend and get your own user key.
  • Register your wireless end-nodes
  • Start receiving Wireless traffic under MQTT format from mosquitto: mosquitto_sub -h mqtt.liberiot.org -p 3001 -t "opendatared/simple/your_user_key/#" -v
  • Any question, please post them on the forum.

You can also take a look into the official page and github to learn more about LIBERIOT. We need your comments, suggestions and cooperation to make this a true tool for the IoT community. Something really open and powerful at the same time. Useful not only for enthusiasts but also for professionals and companies. A totally independent platform to provide support and worldwide infrastructure for low-cost open radios. Thanks for your support!!