Teralytic || LoRAWAN Based Smart Farming

Main Issue : Lack of soil data during growing season lowers yields and profits, and harms the environment. 

Farmers don’t have real-time visibility into soil conditions as they’re working their fields. Without that visibility, farmers often over-or under-fertilize, harming profits and/or the environment.
Traditional soil samples and lab techniques take days to weeks to get results back, are expensive to obtain, and as a result, problems manifest in the plant before results are returned.
 

 Solution:Teralytics

Get the most detailed soil quality data available, via a single probe with 26 sensors reporting soil moisture, salinity, and NPK at three different depths, as well as aeration, respiration, air temperature, light, and humidity.

No wires. Nothing to catch or snag. Easy to install and built to stand up to the wear and tear of your farm.


Key Features:
1. These probes collect data from your soils and send wirelessly via LoRaWAN, a long-distance network that transmits sensor data up to 10 miles away.

2. Wireless LoRaWAN gateways aggregate all probe data and send it to the cloud in a secure, continuous, live stream.

3. In cloud, we run analytics on your data based on soil conditions compiled by governments, universities, and the unique criteria from your farm.

4. Report back to you with real-time and predictive insights using readable charts - and you use the insight on your farm.

5.Send Sensor data to Teralytic Cloud via Cellular, WiFi, or Ethernet

Measure Soil electrical conductivity, moisture, pH, Nitrates, Phosphates, Potassium, and temperature at 3 different depths. Sample every 15 minutes

• Microclimate (Surface) :Air Temperature, Humidity, Light

• Soil Sensors  6in, 18in, 36in Depths : Soil Moisture, Salinity, Soil Temperature, pH, Nitrate, Potassium, Phosphorus

• Gas Sensors 18in / 6in Depths: Aeration (O₂), Respiration (CO₂)

Sensor Arrays Available for 3 Depths


6, 18 and 36 inches / 15, 45, and 90 cm give a stratified view of soils

 

 Analytics:

Terascore is best-in-class metric that analyzes hundreds of data points from your farm and industry statistics to summarize what you need to know about your soil health.

Terascore is crop- and soil-type specific, so it is customized based on the unique profile of your farm.

If you prefer a more detailed breakdown - thye have that too.

Easily track how inputs affect your soil conditions and view historic averages reported for each sensor, at each depth.

 

Pricing :

As per website, they are sold out of Teralytic probes for Spring 2019 shipment–all new pre-orders will receive shipments in Fall 2019.

 

Teralytic SAAS-Based Business Model

•Soil Sensors as a Service: Teralytic charges up front per sensor plus a yearly subscription 

•SaaS-based model includes sensors, networking, software and analytics

•Crop-based pricing: Crop type determines sensor density between 5–75 acres, which determines price

•Streamlined Onboarding and Ordering: Online tool during onboarding helps with sensor placement and pricing 

  

 

For more information reach: https://teralytic.com/index.html

This article Teralytic || LoRAWAN Based Smart Farming is first time published on IoTVigyan , for any query or suggestion, feel free to reach on iotvigyan@gmail.com.

Reference : Internet

 

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Sensoterra | Revolutionary Precision Farming using LoRAWAN

Only 3% of the world’s water is accessible freshwater. Of that, 70% of the freshwater consumed is used in the agricultural industry – the largest consumer of water globally. Monitoring soil moisture levels helps farmers to make effective and smart irrigation decisions. Too much water in the soil leads to waterlogged areas and anpotential for plant illness or death, while too little water will harm crop growth.

Here is the Solution !!

Sensoterra: more crop per drop. Making it easy and affordable to measure soil moisture and produce more food for less. 

Our climate is changing; freshwater supplies are dwindling and droughts, flash floods and failed crops are more and more common. This makes our global food production unstable while our population continues to grow.

Agriculture consumes 70% of the world’s water supply to provide food for 7.5 billion people, yet agriculture is far behind when it comes to embracing digital solutions to solve problems of efficiency and quality in the production of food. Less than 1% of all farmers use sensors to understand their crops condition and needs. As a result, almost all farmers over-irrigate their crops by up to 60%, wasting money, precious water and damaging healthy soils.  

That’s where Sensoterra soil moisture measurement system comes in picture. A low cost and user-friendly tool for farmers that will make the agriculture sector more sustainable and efficient. The Sensoterra Multi Depth Probe will lower water use and increase yields in the agriculture sector, bringing agriculture professionals extensive insight into soil condition. 

The Sensoterra mission is to tackle water waste in agriculture and help farmers increase yield and decrease costs. In short; producing more food for less.

Sensoterra is a low-cost, wireless and remote system that offers farmers real-time insight into the soil moisture condition of their crops. Soil is not homogenous – it holds moisture differently in various areas. With low-cost, plug and play probes that can be deployed across a large field in more areas, the

data becomes more valuable and results in smarter irrigation decisions. 

How it Works ?

  

 

The step-by-step process of Sensoterra’s LoRa-enabled solution

 The company utilizes Semtech LoRa-enabled sensors in its probes and a LoRaWAN™ network that enables the IoT connectivity, Sensoterra primarily focused on the North America and European agriculture markets and has deployed over 4,000 sensors and achieved over 720,000 data points since the product launch in 2016. Sensoterra’s solutions are now being deployed in Australia, South America and other parts of the world. In Dec 2018, IoTVigyan enquired and found that right now Sensoterra's probe do not support Indian LoRAWAN frequency, but if there is attractive business case from India, they can think about the same.

 Current Projects of Sensoterra

USP of Sensoterra

Ease of installation is a key feature of Sensoterra’s soil moisture system. LoRa-enabled multi-depth probe sensors can be installed in a matter of minutes and data is viewable online within an

hour after installation. A free app is available for download and can operate on a laptop, tablet or mobile phone. Users have the ability to manage their installations through an easy to use dashboard and an open API is available for data integration.

Technical Details

Sensoterra probe

• Economic pricing
• Two-minute installation 
• Fully wireless and remote 
• Lifetime of 3-10 years 
• Compatible with all soil types 
• Free Data 
• Wireless range up to 4 km 
• Measure at different soil depths
• Probes retail at USD 110 

 

The system consists of probes, a solar-powered gateway and the stand-alone cloud-system “SoilWare”. Varying probe lengths (15, 30, 60 and 90 centimeters), allow measurement at different soil depths directly at the root of the plant.

Soil moisture data is sent to the cloud through the gateway, the user can access soil moisture data from any location and at any time.

The Sensoterra SoilWare system provides the farmer insight in real-time soil moisture percentage data per measurement point, per crop and stores all data securely stored in the cloud.  Farmers can compare soil moisture distribution per day, week or even year and access all data through PC, smartphone or tablet.

 How Sensoterra can be market differentiator ?

The soil moisture sensor market is dated and prices are high, ranging between 500-1,000 USD per sensor. As a result, typically only 1 sensor is used in a field covering as much as 50 hectares. Using only 1 data point is a high risk for irrigation management, especially considering differences in soil and crop type.

Boasting completely wireless sensors with the most intuitive UX and user friendly design, our sensors are offered at a fraction of the costs of competition, averaging 110 USD per sensor.

Besides the significantly lower retail price for Sensoterra, virtually every competitor is using a subscription model for data use. Sensoterra provides data for free, and charges no fees for the app or any other hidden cost.

For more information reach:https://www.sensoterra.com/

This article Sensoterra | Revolutionary Precision Farming using LoRAWAN is first time published on IoTVigyan , for any query or suggestion, feel free to reach on iotvigyan@gmail.com.

Reference : Internet

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LoRaWAN Security - IoT Fundamentals (Part 3)

Security is a primary concern for any mass IoT deployment and extremely important for any LPWAN.

LoRaWAN™ utilizes two layers of security: one for the network and one for the application. The network security ensures authenticity of the node in the network while the application layer of security ensures the network operator does not have access to the end user’s application data.

Accordingly, the LoRaWAN specification defines two layers of cryptography:

• A unique 128-bit Network Session Key shared between the end-device and network server
• A unique 128-bit Application Session Key (AppSKey) shared end-to-end at the application level

Data over LoRaWAN is encrypted twice; sensor data is encrypted by the node, and then it is encrypted again by the LoRaWAN protocol; only then is it sent to the LoRa Gateway. The Gateway sends data over normal IP network to the network server.

The Network server has the Network Session Keys (NwkSkey), and decrypts the LoRaWAN data. It then passes the data to the Application server which decrypts the sensor data, using the Application Session Key (AppSKey).

This is important since LoRa Gateway operate over open frequency so can receive data from any sensor in the vicinity. Thus, it become important that the LoRa Gateways not have ability to decrypt sensor data.

It is important to note that it is the LoRaWAN communication protocol that adds the encryption. LoRa transmissions by themselves are simple radio wave transmission and cannot be encrypted.

LoRaWAN™ devices have two ways to join the network. The first is OTAA, Over-the-Air-Activation. The device and the network exchange a 128-bit AppKey. When the device send the join request, the AppKey is used to create a Message Integrity Code (MIC), the server then check the MIC with the AppKey. If the check is valid, the server creates two new 128-bit keys, the App Session key (AppSkey) and the Network Session Key (NwkSkey). These keys are sent back to the device using the AppKey as an encryption key. When the keys are received the device decrypts and installs the two session keys.

The NwkSkey is used to guarantee the message integrity from the device to the LoRa Network Server. The AppSkey is used for the end-to-end AES-128 encryption from the device to the Application Server.

The second method for the network join is ABP, Activation by Personalization. In this case the device session keys are inserted by the user, thus is possible to have security issues.

LPWAN - Fundamentals of IoT (Part1)

LoRa and LoRAWAN - Fundamentals of IoT (Part 2)

 

Source :Internet

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LoRa and LoRAWAN - Fundamentals of IoT (Part 2)

LoRa (Long Range) is a patented digital wireless data communication IoT technology developed by Cycleo of Grenoble, France. It was acquired by Semtech in 2012, which holds the IP for LoRa transmission methodology.

LoRa transmits over license-free sub-gigahertz radio frequency bands like 169 MHz, 433 MHz, 868 MHz (Europe) and 915 MHz (North America). LoRa enables very-long-range transmissions (more than 10 km in rural areas) with low power consumption.

The technology is presented in two parts — LoRa, the physical layer, and; the communication protocol built upon the underlying LoRa physical layer. The communication layer may be LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network), an open source communication protocol defined by the LoRa Alliance consortium; or may be Symphony Link, another open source communication protocol defined by a company called Link Labs.

Thus, LoRaWAN™ defines the communication protocol and system architecture for the network, while the LoRa® physical layer enables the long-range communication link. LoRa WAN communication protocol ensures reliable communication, secure communication and adds additional headers to the data packets.

LoRa and LoRaWAN

The LoRaWAN communication protocol is defined by the LoRa Alliance, a non-profit technology alliance of more than 500 member companies, committed to enabling large scale deployment of Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) IoT through the development, and promotion of the LoRaWAN open standard.

The first LoRaWAN standard was announced by the LoRa Alliance in June 2015. In 2017 LoRaWAN specification 1.1 was released.

LoRa and LoRaWAN permit inexpensive, long-range connectivity for IoT devices in rural, remote and offshore industries. They are typically used in mining, natural resource management, renewable energy, transcontinental logistics, and supply chain management.

LoRaWAN is the most adopted type of LPWAN, and promises ubiquitous connectivity in outdoor IoT applications, while keeping network structures, and management, simple.

LoRa and LoRaWAN Network Topology

LoRaWAN network architecture is deployed in a star-of-stars topology (vs. mesh topology eg. Zibgee).

The LoRaWAN networks laid out in a star-of-stars topology have base stations relaying the data between the sensor nodes and the network server.

Communication between the sensor nodes and the base stations goes over the wireless channel utilizing the LoRa physical layer, whilst the connection between the gateways and the central server are handled over a backbone IP-based network.

• End Nodes transmit directly to all gateways within range, using LoRa.
• Gateways relay messages between end-devices and a central network server using IP.

End NodesThe End Nodes are LoRa embedded sensors. The nodes typically have,

• Sensors (used to detect the changing parameter eg. temperature, humidity, accelerometer, gps),
• LoRa transponder to transmit signals over LoRa patented radio transmission method, and
• optionally a micro-controller (with on board Memory).

The sensors may connect to the LoRa transponder chip, or the sensor may be an integrated unit with the LoRa transponder chip embedded.

It is possible to program the micro-controllers in micro-Python or micro-Javascript. This allows developers to use the data from sensors like accelerometers, temperature, etc. and implement certain use cases eg. Fall detection algorithms may be implemented by programming the micro controller based on the inputs from the accelerometer and other sensors.

The LoRaWAN end nodes(sensors) typically use Low Power and are battery powered (Class A and Class B). LoRa embedded sensors that run on batteries that can typically last from 2–5 years. The LoRa sensors can transmit signals over distances from 1km — 10km.

GatewaysThe LoRa sensors transmit data to the LoRa gateways. The LoRa gateways connect to the internet via the standard IP protocol and transmit the data received from the LoRa embedded sensors to the Internet i.e. a network, server or cloud.

The Gateways devices are always connected to a power source. The Gateways connect to the network server via standard IP connections and act as a transparent bridge, simply converting RF packets to IP packets and vice versa.

Network ServersThe Network servers can be cloud based platform solutions like The Things Network (TTN) or LoRIOT. The network servers connect to the gateways and de-dup data packets, and then routes it to the relevant application. The network servers can be used for both uplink (i.e. sensor to application) or downlink (i.e. application to sensor) communication.

The Things Network Network server has a Router, Broker and Handler, which processes the data packets from the LoRaWAN gateway. It also has an AWS Bridge that connects TTN to the AWS IOT platform.

Application Servers
The Application can typically be built over IoT platforms like AWS IoT using Lambda, DynamoDb or S3 services.

For earlier information ,visit 

LPWAN - Fundamentals of IoT (Part1)

Source: Internet

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Why IoT Projects are getting failed?

IDC predicts that the worldwide installed base of Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints will grow from 14.9 billion at the end of 2016 to more than 82 billion in 2025[1]. At this rate, the Internet of Things may soon be as indispensable as the Internet itself.

Despite the forward momentum, a new study conducted by Cisco shows that 60 percent of IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept (PoC) stage and only 26 percent of companies have had an IoT initiative that they considered a complete success. Even worse: a third completed projects were not considered a success.

Speaking at Cisco's IoT World Forum in London, chief exec Chuck Robbins said part of the problem was a lack of interest from the top of companies, with leaders failing to "buy in" to IoT.[2]

Cisco found that in most cases, it was not a technology problem. In most cases, problems arise from company culture, organization and structure [3]. 

As per Ericsson “The main challenges that we have seen in the areas of IoT are, for one, the complexity. Designing, implementing and operating an end-to-end solution for a device, bringing data into analytics, and presenting results in an application environment requires a lot of integration,”.

“Secondly,” he added, “the ability to actually share and work in a joint ecosystem, and share the financial results of the final solution, does not exist today.”

“Thirdly, the challenge of deploying an innovative solution in a production IT environment often leads to longer time to market than expected,” Isaksson stated. [4]

The most common reasons for IoT Project failures are as follows:

• ·         So many standards in the each working domain of end2end IoT Solution, be at Sensors/device level, Connectivity level, Provisioning level, Analytics level or Security. Every customer in every industry have unique needs. No one Size fit for all.

• ·         Too much time in project completions. As modern technologies have given lot of ease in work, so People want plug and play type solutions (no standard or integration botheration)

• ·         No readymade business models available or lack of data points so most of the time project fails because of quick expectations on ROI, however returns will only available once sufficient data points are available for trending and predictive analysis. General time frame is 1-2 year to get rich data points for analysis

• ·         No sufficient e2e skills/competence available, lack of interdomain integration expertise. Needed cross functional courses, training or certifications.In fact, some of the toughest skill sets to hire for are in the highest demand for IoT projects. When asked about technological skills necessary for IoT success, and the difficulty faced in hiring for those skills, IoT professionals ranked data analytics and big data first (75% and 35%), followed by embedded software development (71% and 33%) and IT security (68% and 31%).[5]

This article is published first time on IoT Vigyan Blog

References:

[1] Source: IDC Worldwide Internet of Things Installed Base by Connectivity Forecast, 2017–2021, March 2017

[2]https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?articleId=1847422

[3] https://www.networkworld.com/article/3198246/internet-of-things/top-5-reasons-iot-projects-fail.html

[4] https://www.engineering.com/IOT/ArticleID/12030/What-Ericssons-IoT-Platform-Offers-Engineers.aspx

[5] http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/blog/IoT-Agenda/Four-keys-to-failure-How-IoT-projects-crash-and-burn

 

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IoT Wireless Connectivity’s Business Case

Let’s examine the key connecting technologies (Zigbee-like, Low power Wifi , Low Power Wide area, Cellular 3GPP) in detail from a value proposition point of view i.e. technology versus business proposition versus cost effectiveness.
Following three things need to consider:

• First, they look at Reliability. This determines if the technology can meet the performance requirements of the IoT application at hand.
  • Reliability in the wireless IoT setting generally translates to
    • resilience to interference,
    • data delivery guarantees,
    • low system outages, etc.
  • Second, they would look at Availability which determines if the same technology can be used without any further efforts in other places, in case business opportunities pop up somewhere else.
    • Availability generally translates to
      • guarantee of coverage,
      • ability to support mobility and roaming,
      • critical mass in rollout, etc
  • Finally, they would look at Viability, i.e. cost. It determines if there is a business case in the first instance, and that the business case remains viable in the near future.
    • Cost pertains to
      • Total Cost of Ownership which is the sum of CAPEX (Capital Expenditure) and OPEX (Operational Expenditure).

Following graph examined the Reliability and Availability of these connecting technologies. Further we will work out the viability of the four different connectivity options.

Image Courtesy : King’s College London
Viability of Connectivity options in an urban IoT (use case)
Now let’s look at a scenario where we find out a little more about the costs involved in each connectivity option.
Let’s assume to deploy advanced sensing IoT infrastructure in 1km²   area, which in turn will power interesting smart city applications.

Without specifying the details about the type of IoT infrastructure we are implementing, we need to place 10,000 sensors in your 1km² area. Compare the different connectivity solutions. What we are ultimately interested in is the total connectivity infrastructure cost to the city after 5 years of operations (approximately 1 legislation period) and after 10 years (approx. 2 legislation periods).

Below you can see the availability, reliability and the costs of the four connectivity options. Note that the calculations given are only approximate, but gives a good indication of the orders of magnitude.
Zigbee
Availability and reliability
Zigbee and variants perform rather poorly – reliability and availability are low.

Image Courtesy: ITU
Assumptions:

• 20 sensors (End Devices) are connected to 1 repeater (Router); and 10 repeaters to 1 gateway (Coordinator) (ie 200 sensors per gateway)
• A sensor radio costs $20; repeater costs $100; and gateway costs $500
• 2 people need to be hired full time to trouble shoot, at $50k per year each

CAPEX and OPEX :

• CAPEX: $200k sensor radios + $50k repeaters + $25k gateways = $275k one-off
• OPEX: 10% of CAPEX for repair, replacement, change of batteries, etc at approx. $27k p.a. + 2 full time staff at $100k p.a. = $127k per year

Project costs:

• 5 year project = $910k
• 10 year project = $1,545k

Wi-Fi
Availability and reliability
Low power Wi-Fi enjoys a very good availability since Wi-Fi is universally available these days, and reliability is acceptable.

Assumptions:

• 200 sensors directly connected to a gateway
• A sensor radio costs $30; and gateway costs $500
• 1 person needs to be hired full time to maintain network, at $50k per year

CAPEX (capital expenditure) and OPEX (operational expenditure):

• CAPEX: $300k sensor radios + $25k gateways = $325k one-off
• OPEX: 10% of CAPEX at $32k p.a. + 1 full time staff at $50k p.a. = $82k per year

Project costs:

• 5 year project = $735k
• 10 year project = $1,150k

Low power Wide Area Networks
Availability and reliability
The emerging low power wide area networks generally enjoy a good availability since they are easy to deploy and offer wide coverage. Reliability is also acceptable whilst critical applications cannot be supported.

Assumptions:

• All sensors connect directly to 3 base stations
• Sensor radio costs $10; gateway costs $5k
• 1 person needs to be hired full time to maintain network, at $50k per year

CAPEX (capital expenditure) and OPEX (operational expenditure):

• CAPEX: $100k sensor radios + $15k base stations = $115k one-off
• OPEX: 10% of CAPEX at $11k p.a. + 1 full time staff at $50k p.a. = $61k per year

Project costs:

• 5 year Project = $422k
• 10 year project = $730k

3GPP Cellular
Availability and reliability
Cellular enjoys a great availability and reliability, and is also able to serve really critical applications.

Image Courtesy: ITU
Assumptions:

• All sensors connect directly to operator’s infrastructure
• Sensor radio costs $50
• Using existing field support manpower

CAPEX (capital expenditure) and OPEX (operational expenditure):

• CAPEX: $500k sensor radios one-off
• OPEX: 20% of CAPEX (higher since includes data plans and more frequent change of batteries) at $100k per year

Project costs:

• 5 year Project = $750k
• 10 year project = $1,000k

In the above article we looked at four different connectivity solutions our sample city. Which solution do you think would work best for the city project? Remember that cheap component costs are important to a competitive IoT product, but what really matters is the total cost when the system becomes operational.

Use the comment area below to share which solution you think would work best for the city project.
Link  IoT Connectivity Project Cost Calculation
Note:The calculations given are only approximate, but gives a good indication of the orders of magnitude.
Concept (Courtesy) : King’s College London

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