Transforming Agriculture with LoRaWAN®: How AgriSens is Powering Productivity for Farmers

The Challenge

Smallholder farmers around the world face numerous challenges, including low productivity, poor efficiency, and the effects of climate change. These challenges can have a significant impact on their ability to produce food and earn a living.

Digital farming involves the collection of various types of data on weather, soil, water, and atmospheric conditions, as well as animal health and location. With the growth of different sensing techniques, it has become essential to have a versatile IoT sensor ecosystem that can cater to these different types of data.

Extending long lines of field cabling can be costly and is not always possible, particularly when monitoring livestock. Different topographies and natural boundaries demand wireless technology with wide coverage and deep penetration.

To adapt to each type of application, a quick, batch-type configuration of parameters should be spread among the sensor network effortlessly. The sensor outputs should also feed into different cloud data visualization and analytics vendors without any complications.

To apply control signals to on-field devices and machinery, full duplex, real-time communication must be enabled. While increasing the number of possible touchpoints for attackers, the applied cybersecurity strategy must use a security-first architecture that allows for the end-to-end implementation of global security standards.

Finally, the virtual orchestration of IoT devices should grant a straightforward workflow, including FUOTA operations, real-time alarm monitoring, and remote troubleshooting. These challenges make it difficult to implement digital farming solutions that can work efficiently and effectively for farmers.

Pilot Things, in collaboration with RAKwireless, have developed a LoRaWAN®-enabled AgriSens solution that addresses these challenges. The solution includes sensors that monitor soil moisture, sunlight, ambient humidity, wind, sun, ambient temperature, and pressure. These sensors are connected to a LoRaWAN® gateway that sends data to the cloud for analysis. Farmers can access this data in real-time using their mobile devices and make informed decisions about their crops to overcome their challenges and maximize productivity.

The solution to address the challenges of farm digitalization lies in using LoRaWAN® technology, which provides an efficient, flexible, and economical solution to real-world problems in rural use cases, where cellular, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) networks are ineffective. LoRaWAN® technology offers the best mix of capabilities in terms of price, performance, power consumption, and range.

AgriSens software includes two products, AgriSens Water and AgriSens Weather. AgriSens Water monitors soil moisture, sunlight, and ambient humidity to help farmers adjust irrigation in real-time. AgriSens Weather monitors wind, sun, ambient temperature, and pressure to give farmers precise data on climatic conditions. Both solutions include threshold alarms with mobile phone notifications, and they can be customized to local needs, including language, regulations, and the farm's existing monitoring systems.

Moreover, RAKwireless and Pilot Things have seamlessly integrated RAKwireless sensors and gateways with its AgriSens software product line, removing complexity and maximizing benefits. The AgriSens solution allows farmers to save time and money without compromising their project needs and results. With a very reasonable entry price per sensor, the cost-benefit ratio is one of the best on the market.

Pilot Things selected RAKWireless Sensor Hub product for keys benefits: cellular and LoRaWAN support to best fit all deployment use cases, compatibility with multiple external sensors to seamlessly add new features, NFC support for easy onboarding.

To facilitate scalability, the AgriSens solution is empowered by the AWS capability that allows the connection of billions of IoT devices and the routing of trillions of messages to AWS services. It can easily adapt to the economic behavior that characterizes the agricultural business and can be cost-adapted on-demand through AWS's solid qualities of security, scalability, AI integration, monitoring, and analytics.

In summary, the AgriSens solution powered by LoRaWAN® technology provides a comprehensive solution for farmers to collect and analyze real-time data, adjust irrigation in real-time, monitor weather conditions, and increase productivity while minimizing costs.

Outcome

The AgriSens solution has enabled farmers to maximize productivity and overcome the challenges they face. By providing real-time data on weather and soil conditions, farmers can adjust irrigation and make informed decisions about their crops. The solution has also helped farmers save time and money without compromising their project needs and results. With a very reasonable entry price per sensor, the cost-benefit ratio is one of the best on the market. The solution is ready to scale and can easily adapt to the economic behavior that characterizes the agricultural business.

The LoRaWAN® technology ecosystem provides an efficient, flexible, and economical solution to real-world problems in rural use cases, where cellular, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) networks are ineffective. It offers the best mix of capabilities in terms of price, performance, power consumption, and range, and features mandatory authentication, integrity and replay protection, and encryption. The open LoRaWAN® standard is end-to-end secure by design, over three specified layers of AES-128 cryptography.

Overall, the AgriSens solution has demonstrated the power of digital innovation in agriculture and has the potential to improve the lives of farmers around the world.