Environmental Sensor Network
Agricultural monitoring required manual data collection across 500+ acres — impractical and unreliable.
LoRa mesh network with solar-powered sensor nodes. Cloud platform auto-generates actionable alerts.
100% coverage with 2-year battery life. Water usage optimized by 30%.
Overview
Precision agriculture depends on granular environmental data, but running power and connectivity to hundreds of field locations is impractical. I designed a self-sustaining sensor mesh that covers entire farms with zero infrastructure requirements.
Process
Field Assessment
Surveyed 3 farms (200–800 acres) to understand terrain, crop types, and existing irrigation systems. Key constraints: no grid power, cellular dead zones, harsh weather exposure, and minimal maintenance budget.
Node Hardware
Custom PCB with soil moisture, temperature, humidity, and light sensors. LoRa SX1276 radio with 2km line-of-sight range. Solar panel + LiFePO4 battery with MPPT charging, sized for 7 days without sun. IP67 enclosure designed for stake mounting.
Mesh Networking
LoRa mesh protocol with automatic routing and self-healing. Gateway nodes with cellular backhaul (LTE-M) aggregate data from up to 50 sensor nodes. Time-synced duty cycling for 2-year battery life at 15-minute reporting intervals.
Cloud & Alerts
AWS IoT Core for ingestion, TimescaleDB for time-series storage. Next.js dashboard with field map overlay showing real-time readings. Configurable alert rules: soil moisture below threshold triggers irrigation recommendation with estimated water savings.