Environmental monitoring at the Montefiore institute thanks to a LoRa network

Abstract

In a world where everything becomes automated and digital, the development of connectivity technologies is a key element. In this context, the emergence of wireless communication devices revolutionizes the possibilities that are offered, especially for environmental monitoring. These devices are part of a wider active research topic called Internet Of Things (IoT).

This work aligns with this overall context. It aims at creating an autonomous network communicating via a LoRa (long-range) wireless protocol to monitor indoor environmental parameters. In particular, the goal is to create, from scratch, several standalone nodes that sense their environment and transmit the obtained data to a central gateway. This gateway finally shares the obtained data with a network for user display.

The thesis begins with the development of a simplified network. This first step aims at developing the main elements that can then be used in the global network. In this first part, several sensors, interfaced with a development board, transmit data via wireless communication to the gateway. This part also includes a complete description of the choices that have been made regarding communication protocols and sensors.

The work then focuses on the creation of autonomous nodes. This aspect is related to the autonomous supply voltage of the nodes via indoor solar panels as well as the creation of the node antenna for data transfer.

The remaining part of this thesis is dedicated to the description of the nodes. In particular, this section explains how they have been designed and implemented, both from a software and hardware point of view. The final section then describes how the gateway sends data to the created network.