Whitepapers

LoRa Alliance ® and LoRaWAN ® are registered trademarks. Used with permission. ©2020 LoRa Alliance ® www.lora-alliance.org THE FARMING OF TOMORROW IS ALREADY HERE: HOW LoRaWAN ® TECHNOLOGY SUPPORTS SMART AGRICULTURE & PRECISE ANIMAL PRODUCTION consumption, were key characteristics for ITK to develop its cattle monitoring sensors. LoRaWAN devices' flexibility in deployment makes a key difference for connecting animals and offers the potential for a significant ROI. Livestock location tracking with Miromico Asset tracking is one of the most promising verticals of Internet-of-Things (IoT) and challenging in implementation from a technological point of view. Determination of geolocation parameters are power hungry and the development of integrated sensors requires novel solutions. Semtech recently introduced the first product of its new LoRa Edge platform that will enable indoor and outdoor asset management. The LoRa Edge multi-technology asset management solution (LR1110) is a game-changing geolocation solution that significantly reduces the cost and complexity of locating and monitoring IoT assets. The new module of Miromico FMLR-LR1110-X-STL0Z is based on the LR1110 chip of Semtech and allows fast prototyping. Miromico is currently working on a proof-of-concept (PoC) using the FMLR-LR1110-X-STL0Z module together with its partner Compsesa. Within the PoC, sensors are developed to monitor around 15 thousand cattle in Ecuador. Monitoring movement and defining geofencing areas with Chipsafer and Flex Chipsafer, founded in Uruguay in 2013 and it moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020, developed a product suitable for volume manufacturing. The design iterations included multiple stages of DFX which incorporates Design for Manufacturing (DFM), Design for Testing (DFT), and Design for Cost (DFC). After further analysis, it was clear that LoRaWAN would be the best choice for Chipsafer in terms of range, power consumption, and cost for rural areas. Using Chipsafer's portal, a farmer knows where his/her animals are at all times, can access insights and actionable information to better manage the herd and can define geofencing areas to monitor the movements of the animals. The farmer will receive warnings if cattle leaves the specific area or if there is any abnormal movement. Once detected the farmer receives detailed information about the animals and can immediately react in the most appropriate way. Chipsafer collaborated with Flex to develop a hardware solution for the data collection. Flex has five decades of experience creating devices, and deep understanding of technology which helped guide Chipsafer to choose the most suitable technologies for its use case. Farmers now monitor their cows from the inside with smaXtec In the last few decades, herd sizes, farms, and their structures, have changed significantly. This does not always allow for the ideal level of individual animal care. Price pressure is constantly increasing and production efficiency is becoming even more important. Consumers tend to be more sensitive about animal welfare, from where their milk comes from to the conditions in which cows live. That's why farmers have started using technologies like smaXtec for support. SmaXtec was founded as a research project and is now a technology leader in its field. The company has collected over 5 billion data points on cows and sold 70,000+ pieces. Their unique device, in the form of a bolus, constantly measures inner body temperature, activity, and pH values in the rumen, the most accurate point in the dairy cow's body. The system informs farmers about signs of heat and calving, and diseases are detected several days prior to clinical symptoms. Furthermore, this allows for early treatment and a drop in antibiotic usage of up to 30%. The system includes boluses, as well as the carrier grade Base Station provided by Kerlink, Repeater, and Climate Sensor. The hardware is connected via LoRaWAN, making continuous data transmission possible. The partnership with Kerlink, a world-leading LoRaWAN infrastructure provider, is essential to smaXtec in order to scale the solution all around the world with technically proven solutions at minimum risk. The data collected by the bolus is transferred to the Kerlink Base Station from where it is uploaded to the cloud. Farmers receive notifications on their smartphones if

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