Low-Power Agriculture IoT System with LoRa: Open Field Storage Observation

Abstract

The last decade has seen multiple research work on the use of LoRaWAN technology in smart agriculture. In open field storage, monitoring is crucial for increasing the logistics efficiency and improving crop quality. As battery maintenance is expensive in such areas, LoRa is a suitable technology that allows for low-power communications. Within the framework of the research, a prototype has been built for tracking goods in open field storage. The battery lifetime has been analysed through calculations and measurements using LoRa communications. Our findings indicate that although sleeping current has the smallest percentage, it has the greatest effect on increasing the battery life, for longer battery life LoRa node must have a low self-discharge battery, and finally, sensors are the main battery depleting factor on the LoRa node.

Energy Performance Analysis and Modelling of LoRa Prototyping Boards

“…The message power required ultimately reduces with valid increases in the DR setting. This shows good agreement with the results published in other works on this topic [ 15 , 16 , 17 ]. We can further see that as the transmission bit rate increases there is a staged reduction in message delivery timing from approximately 4 s down to 3 s. This decrease in message time is not linear and instead only steps down to a faster message time at DR1 and then stays static at the 4 s mark.…”

Development and Test of a Low Power Sensor Device in Intensive Almond Crops : A Case Study in the Region of Beira Baixa

“…No que diz respeito ao aumento da eficiência energética do nó sensor, os autores em [11] combinaram num único estudo experimental, o desempenho de um nó sensor em termos energéticos com as propriedades radio LoRa, apresentando uma solução autónoma integrando painel solar, regulador de carga e bateria, mas sem ter em consideração uma otimização do tempo entre leituras dos sensores. Em [12], os autores realizaram um estudo aprofundado sobre os ciclos de carga da bateria num nó sensor, em função das operações de envio, receção de mensagens na rede LoRa, aa medição de valores em sensores e no modo de baixo consumo. Levando em base estes estudos científicos, este trabalho diferencia-se pelo foco na otimização e na eficiência energética do consumo energético do nó sensor com a implementação de um algoritmo para gestão dos tempos de leitura e envio de mensagens para a rede TTN, e numa análise estatística desses dados.…”