A miniature IoT-based Ground Station at 433 MHz for reception of telemetry packets from LoRa satellites

Abstract

In this article, a miniature Internet of Things-based ground station operating at 433 MHz for the reception of telemetry packets from LoRa satellites is presented. The ground station is composed of a turnstile antenna, an ESP32-based LoRa reception system, and a rechargeable battery. Connected to Internet via a WLAN router, the ground station offers monitoring capabilities through a web page interface. The website provides a console to track the coordinates of the target satellite, allowing telemetry packets to be downloaded and displayed. The goal of this project is to have a low-cost telemetry ground station for educational and radio amateurs purposes, solving the issue of bringing youth closer to STEM careers, this by means of building a ground station using COTS components that is able to be connected to LEO-orbiting satellites.