Hi Everyone
Just FYI that right now we now have a SigFox gateway running to create an IoT network at the Los Amigos field station in lowland Peruvian Amazon. Amazing forest, tons of animals. We are using the network for animal tracking and getting coverage out to 6-8km on the ground, certainly further in the canopy. We'll have a better range map eventually.
If anyone else is interested in testing their IoT enabled devices in a real-world situation you are welcome to come down and try it out at Los Amigos. I'd love to see some edge-computing cameras or microphones!
cheers
Roland
26 September 2022 1:52pm
Hi Roland,
This is awesome to hear about! I'm just starting my PhD in computer science and am very interested in IoT environmental data collection and wildlife monitoring.
I'm not far enough along yet to have anything to test, but if I would love to learn more about your network setup and to see the range map especially as it relates to propagation through different sections of the canopy and different vegetation density. Do you plan on keeping you network going for a while? And are you using the network exclusively for wildlife location tracking?
Cheers,
Eric Greenlee
26 September 2022 10:20pm
Hi Roland,
This is really amazing, great to hear about your set-up! I'm just wondering what the overall cost was to set up this system? Just thinking in terms of setting up something similar in other parks and what they should expect with regard to price. Would also be great to hear about the overall effort, e.g., hours/team members required. It would be great to have this act as a blueprint for other organizations/research stations wishing to deploy a similar system within their respective national parks/areas/etc.!
10 October 2022 8:33am
Hi Rolland,
Interested too, but why did you choose SigFox (a private network) rather than LoRa (open network)?
Sigfox currently has some financial troubles that, don't know what it will become in the long term.
18 October 2022 11:55am
Hi Everyone,
We chose sigfox becuase it seems to have better range and is plug-play, whereas LoRa requires more custom programming and updating. Getting a gateway cost us $2000 for a year's lease + deposit. We covered solar power. There are also some 'minigateways' you can purchase but I don't know how they compare in range (plan to test). So far we are happy with the performance, in that it has worked consistency with no outages (once we stabilized the power supply). I think the annual costs are about $10 per tag. We are working on a paper that will describe this in more detail. So far just using for tracking tags but also looking at a trap sensor.
cheers
Roland
Eric Greenlee
Georgia Institute of Technology