Maresme Resources Big Data and IoT Infrastructure: Enhancing Smart Farming with LoRaWAN

As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to revolutionize the agriculture industry, LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) technology has emerged as a game-changer for smart farming. At strategic locations, a series of LoRaWAN gateway antennas are being installed to provide free communications infrastructure for winemakers, micro-farmers, and the public. LoRa technology enables transmission of important data, such as soil PH and moisture, from compatible, inexpensive smart sensors that have a battery life of up to 10 years and can reach where there is no internet or where Wi-Fi is not practical or affordable.

The LoRaWAN gateways receive sensor data and retransmit it to the ThingsNetwork™, which can then send it to public databases for trend analysis, be used for precision agriculture, or serve as the basis for climate and natural resources research. This infrastructure has several practical applications in a smart farm setting.

Examples

a) a micro-farmer can deploy various inexpensive sensors and view essential soil, water, climate, and plant data on their mobile phones. This data is collected locally and transmitted through the nearest LoRaWAN gateway to the internet, enabling farmers to receive alerts, know the state of their soil, and determine the hydrological stress level of their produce.

b) local governments can use satellite imagery data and local and global sensors’ data for descriptive statistics, predictive models, and data visualization, which can help with water, energy, and fire management. These applications can benefit the micro-farming and wine-growing community by providing early warnings of humidity, pests, disease, soil conditions, etc.

Progress Made

Alella Green Tech operates the first pilot LoRaWAN installation at Can Picard in Alella, which serves as a proof of concept system for managing well water and reservoir levels. We plan to install several more gateways to bring smart farming services to everyone who needs it, pending talks with local governments.