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 as ventilation, air quality, lighting and energy consumption, and track and trace meat during transportation. To accomplish the latter, Webee used LoRaWAN asset and vehicle tracking sensors installed in pallets, and Panasonic CRBs (cold roll box) to monitor conditions, shock, temperature/humidity and location. The project also included the deployment of monitoring sensors in retail stores to maintain meat temperature end-to-end, from farm to table. Modern dairy cows are bred and fed for high productivity (with udders that are highly productive bioreactors) and whose high metabolisms produce a lot of heat, which must be transferred away from the cow as farmers are increasingly aware of their animals' susceptibility to heat- stress. Optimum temperatures range below 18°C, but if the temperature rises above 24°C, significant reductions in herd productivity can be anticipated. In addition, there is a shortage of quality labor in dairy farming as it is challenging for farmers to find skilled workers. Coupled with a lack of precise tools to manage their operations, farmers are not generating as much milk (revenue) as they could. Several companies have developed solutions to monitor the welfare of cattle. Cattle and farm management via smart devices with AWS Amazon Web Services (AWS) gives farmers the ability to shift and manage their herd remotely from a smart device. Each cow is fitted with a smart collar which is coupled with a mobile app. This allows the farmer to create virtual paddocks, physically shift cows, and monitor the well- being of each cow. The AWS Customer can easily push new functionality to customers by updating the app and pushing a firmware update using OTA to the smart collar. The AWS Customer gives farmers back control of their assets, their farms, and their lives. The system reduces labor requirements, increases milk production, makes compliance easy, and improves animal welfare. Effective, comprehensive farm monitoring with Pessl Instruments Pessl Instruments has been offering a complete range of wireless, solar-powered monitoring systems under the brand METOS operating in various industries, including agriculture. LoRaWAN low power radio communication allows for the placement of numerous sensors throughout the dairy farm. With all data transmitted through one gateway, connected to the farm's internet connection, the cellular cost is reduced to nothing. This enables monitoring temperature and relative humidity in different areas of the stables—important at organic dairy farms. Several LoRATH devices, measuring temperature and relative humidity, have been placed in stables. To monitor moisture, soil and food temperature, a LoRAIN system has been placed in the pasture or free-range area of the farm. Mobile apps for Android and IOS allow farmers to access the LoRaWAN data from wherever they are. Models for the well-being of the animals are calculated on the website. The outputs are available for weather forecast and for measured data. The use of LoRaWAN technology allows a highly cost effective and nearly real-time monitoring of environmental issues on dairy farms. By using the internet, it permits fast warning if a stress problem (i.e. heat stress) occurs. The monitoring of outdoor weather with the help of LoRaWAN technology results in optimal harvesting and cattle feed. Optimizing cattle health and well-being for cattle with ITK's FarmLife Feed'Live, a feeding disorder detection service for cattle developed by ITK, has enabled cows to be treated in record time. Thanks to a connected collar, disorders can be detected four days earlier, leading to faster recovery. Furthermore, it can detect limping as well as effective treatment provided to the cow by the farmer. The IoT technology's proven advantages for smart agriculture, including long range communication and ultra-low power CATTLE FARMING

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