Title: Hybrid solution for smart rural applications in areas without internet coverage

Authors: Luis Miguel Bartolín-Arnau; David Todoli-Ferrandis; Javier Silvestre-Blanes; Víctor Sempere-Payá; Salvador Santonja-Climent

Addresses: Advanced Communications Group, Instituto Tecnológico de Informática (ITI), Valencia, 46022, Spain ' Advanced Communications Group, Instituto Tecnológico de Informática (ITI), Valencia, 46022, Spain ' Department of Computer Architecture (DISCA), Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Valencia, 46022, Spain ' Department of Communications (DCOM), Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Valencia, 46022, Spain ' Advanced Communications Group, Instituto Tecnológico de Informática (ITI), Valencia, 46022, Spain

Abstract: Agriculture and livestock farming are one of the main economic bases of rural areas in Southern Europe, with many classified as 'sparsely populated'. This article proposes and tests a technical solution to support different applications that require a large range of coverage and tracking assets, as can be found for instance in smart farming, or environmental monitoring. LoRaWAN, which provides several kilometres of coverage, low battery consumption and robust communications, is selected as the solution to overcome the lack of cellular network connectivity in those areas. Then, the design of a hybrid solution for rural areas, that requires the use of a LoRaWAN mobile gateway to extend the range of LoRaWAN coverage, is presented. In addition, to ensure quality of service (QoS) and avoid data loss, a 5G internet connection is used to provide connectivity to the LoRaWAN gateway, combined with the store and forward communications mechanism to avoid data loss in areas without internet connection.

Keywords: LoRaWAN; 5G; store and forward; S&F; smart agriculture; smart livestock; mobile gateway LoRaWAN.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2022.127845

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2022 Vol.40 No.4, pp.250 - 261

Received: 01 Jun 2022
Accepted: 26 Jul 2022
Published online: 19 Dec 2022 *

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