What is a Secure Concentrator?

Secure Concentrator Card is a mPCIe LoRaWAN Concentrator based Semtech SX1303 baseband processor with on-board GPS receiver and Secure Microcontroller. Secure Concentrators digitally sign every recieved LoRa packet with a unique ED25519 cryptographic key making it ideal for use in DePIN projects such as Helium where proof of physical location is required.

The Secure Concentrator Card (codename: Kompressor) was originally developed by NLighten Systems and funded in part by a grant from the Helium Foundation. Kompressor is fully open-source hardware (licensed under CERN-OHL-W) and firmware (licensed under GPLv3). The project is certified open source by OSHWA US002135.

Secure Concentrator is the key component of Helium Improvment Proposal 72 (HIP-72)

Kicad PCB Design

Secure Concentrator hardware is designed with Kicad (Open source CAD software). The hardware source files can be found here: Offical NLighten Systems Hardware Project

Hardware Architecture

Secure Concentrator is based on Semtech's LoRa Corecell Gateway reference design. The major change involves the addition of a Secure MCU (SMCU) placed in between the communication path of the Host CPU and the SX1303. The SMCU's primary job is to cryptographically sign RF data received over the air.