Development and field evaluation of a multichannel LoRa sensor for IoT monitoring in berry orchards

Abstract

Evaluation of long-range wireless transceivers with respect to their power consumption, network connectivity, and coverage under extreme field conditions is necessary prior to their deployment in large-scale commercial orchards. This paper reports on the development and field performance of an affordable multi-channel wireless data acquisition for IoT monitoring of environmental variations in berry orchards. A connectivity board was custom-designed based on the powerful dual-core 32-bit microcontroller with WiFi antenna and LoRa modulation at 868 MHz. The objective was to verify the possibility of transmitting multiple sensor readings with lower power consumption while increasing the reliability and stability of wireless communication at long distances (over 1.7 km). Collected data from the wireless sensor was compared and found to be consistent with measurements of a data logger installed in the same locations. The presented paper highlights the advantages of LoRa sensors for digital agriculture and the experience in real-time monitoring of environmental parameters in berry orchards.