nrf52840 Mesh Thread+ LTE module as a border router

[kumarnaveenb]

Hi,

I am trying to make my own border router for Thread mesh network using nrf52840 and BG96. I have ordered pre-certified third party  modules. Now How can I interface it to my LTE module. We have some ready LTE modules (BG96) which we are using in pother projects.

Using nRF52840 with Wifi/Ethernet it is easy but with GSM how can we do it? Any documents would be really helpful.

Thanks,

Naveen

[Rob C]

Naveen,

One way to do this is to implement the Open Thread Border Router (OTBR), on a Raspberry Pi, as described in the Nordic SDK & examples.  Then replace the Ethernet cable with a PPP cellular connection using the Quectel BG96.  Quectel has a pretty good set of documentation for using PPP on a Linux platform.  It'll run fine on CAT-M1, but keeping a persistent PPP connection open over NB-IoT is probably not viable in the long term due to carrier restrictions.

I'm sure there is a much more elegant approach where you run the Border Router functionality on the BG96's application processor, but that's a much bigger software project.

-Rob

[kumarnaveenb]

Hi Rob,

Its good idea to use BG96 with R Pi I will try that.

How about using Thingy:91. Does it work as a Thread Border Router? I can see some examples with BLE.

-Naveen

[Rob C]

This would be an awesome application for an nRF91 + nRF5x combination (like the Thingy:91), but I'll leave it to the experts at Nordic regarding feasibility.  If you take a look at the OTBR project on Github, you'll see its a pretty complex undertaking and leverages a fair amount of networking functionality provided by the Linux OS.

-Rob

[kumarnaveenb]

Rob,

I am able to run the USB with R Pi as border Router.

It would be great to use nrf91+nRF52840 as Thread border router. It sounds like as of now nrf91 does not support it. Tentatively when it can be available?

-Naveen