LoRaWAN in Smart Agriculture
This article is about LoRaWAN smart agriculture technology for farms and ranches. We’ll go through what LoRaWAN technology is, applications in smart agriculture, how it works, and then a basic introduction on how to get started.
LoRaWAN technology is often called an example of IoT, or the Internet of Things. In this case, the Internet of Things for smart agriculture uses a long-range, wide-area network. This technology is used by farmers and ranchers to monitor assets or conditions. They can use this technology to monitor soil conditions, soil moisture, soil temperature, rainfall, and more.
They can also use it in remote buildings knowing whether somebody goes into them or whether their doors are opened or they can monitor fuel tanks and water tanks out in pastures, and the locations of cattle by putting tags on them.
LoRa and LoRaWAN Overview
LoRa stands for Long Range (the radio/modulation). LoRaWAN stands for Long Range Wide Area Network (the networking protocol). This is a wireless system that communicates between sensors and a gateway (with an antenna) and then to the internet. LoRaWAN uses license-free (unlicensed) ISM radio bands and enables fairly long-range communication often up to five miles in rural areas and maybe two miles in urban areas, depending on terrain, antennas, and placement.
This technology allows you to put the sensors out remotely, collect that information at a gateway, send it to the internet, and manage it in a way that you can see it either on your cell phone or on your computer. This technology is managed by an organization called the LoRa Alliance, a group primarily composed of companies and their representatives that make equipment especially sensors and gateways and promote the open LoRaWAN standard. Once devices are set up on a LoRaWAN system, you can use that system to view the data. There are various sensors soil moisture sensors, temperature sensors, air temperature, relative humidity, and much more that can be set up out in the field.
You can monitor rainfall, wind speed, wind direction, the liquid level in tanks (whether a fuel tank or a water tank for cattle), GPS locations of equipment, livestock movements, building security, and so on.
There is no spectrum license fee to use LoRaWAN in the unlicensed bands. The tiny sensors operate on small batteries such as D-cell or lithium primary cells and they can last two years or more depending on reporting intervals and radio settings.
LoRaWAN Gateway for Smart Agriculture
The gateway requires electricity, and it needs to be connected to the internet. But the key here is that all this data will be readily available on your computer or on your cell phone once you get it set up.
Here are some examples of devices, starting with a sample gateway.
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LoRaWAN Smart Agriculture Sensors
Now let’s look at the sensors. They’re all weatherproof so that they can be set up outside.
If you have temperature and moisture sensors in your fields, you could put a small flag or marker to know where they’re located so that when you want to go back and collect them, you can find them easily. A GPS unit could be installed on a tractor, on a four-wheeler, or as guidance for locating cattle. A clear example of liquid level in tanks would be monitoring water in a field, water tanks, or pastures.
How does this technology work? Sensors like moisture, temperature, or air quality sensors are set up remotely in the field and have battery power to transmit signals. Then you need to have a gateway with electricity and an internet connection to receive them.
Moreover, if you don’t have internet at that site for example, let’s say you’re monitoring something 10 miles away you might install the gateway where there is no wired internet or grid power. In that case, you can use a cellular 4G or 5G subscription to get internet. The estimated price would be $25–$30 per month for the internet subscription, which would be an operating cost.
If there is no electricity there, you can set up battery power (e.g., 12V with a charge controller) and spend $25–$30 (or more, depending on size) for a small solar panel to keep the system powered at that location. So it can work even if you don’t have wired internet and electricity available.
Data Management in LoRaWAN Smart Agriculture
The data has to be managed. It’s one thing to collect and send to the edge of the field (a LoRaWAN gateway), but you will need some way of managing it. There are several options available, like TTN (The Things Network) a free, community network server that can route device data to the internet and is usable worldwide. It’s not a lot of work, but you do have to go through a procedure to set it up, and it can begin monitoring sensors within minutes once configured.
Once the data is sent to the internet, the last thing that has to be done is making it viewable on the internet. So you take that sensor data and have many opportunities to visualize it.
The Choovio sensor monitoring system makes it possible for individuals and companies to visualize the data and see it on cell phones or computers. It can also send a text or email alert message. For example, if a door is left open or somebody goes into a building, you can get an immediate text or email message. Or, if an animal is in the wrong place, you can get a text message to know that.
Setting Up TTN for LoRaWAN Monitoring
We will go through the basic steps for setting up the system on TTN (The Things Network). You have to set up an account to log in to the Console on The Things Network. Then you have to create an application for example, one gateway with five soil moisture and temperature sensors. Then you have to register those devices and add an integration to the application. The integration is a way of viewing that information on the internet. All gateways and sensors have EUIs (unique identifiers) for example, DevEUI and JoinEUI (formerly AppEUI) which are used to register them on different Network Servers (in this example, TTN).
Cost and Deployment Considerations
LoRaWAN technology is a way to monitor assets and activities without paying spectrum licensing fees. The costs are the equipment and setup and any monitoring services of your choice, plus any backhaul costs (e.g., cellular data plans if used), but there is no ongoing fee to use the unlicensed radio spectrum itself.
As you can see, there are a lot of opportunities. Basically, the cost to set this up is relatively small; for a few hundred dollars, you could have everything set up and then be able to get that information and receive it by emails and text messages, or simply view it on the internet. Do you have any questions?
