Hybrid solution for smart rural applications in areas without Internet coverage

Abstract

Agriculture and livestock farming are one of the main economic bases of rural areas in Southern Europe, with many classified as "sparsely populated". This article proposes and tests a technical solution to support different applications that require a large range of coverage and tracking assets, as can be found for instance in smart farming, or environmental monitoring. LoRaWAN, which provides several kilometres of coverage, low battery consumption and robust communications, is selected as the solution to overcome the lack of cellular network connectivity in those areas. Then, the design of a hybrid solution for rural areas, that requires the use of a LoRaWAN mobile gateway to extend the range of LoRaWAN coverage, is presented. In addition, to ensure quality of service (QoS) and avoid data loss, a 5G Internet connection is used to provide connectivity to the LoRaWAN gateway, combined with the store & forward communications mechanism to avoid data loss in areas without internet connection.