It may not be as exciting as other fields, but agriculture is incredibly important to humanity and technological advances have increased yields, efficiency, and productivity many times throughout history. All of the evidence suggests that smart agriculture is going to be at the heart of the next big technological leap and that will require trust in the data. To further that goal, researchers from Newcastle University and the University of Nottingham developed the Squirrel Box.
The Squirrel Box is a small, remote device that measures key soil metrics, like pH levels, moisture content, ambient conditions, and NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium) levels. That data is important in determining the health of the soil in a field. It is useful for protecting potential yields and also for maintaining the soil to achieve maximum productivity. The Squirrel Box can transmit its data over long distances via LoRaWAN® to a WisGate Edge Lite 2, which is an eight-channel gateway that many boxes can connect to in order to provide a comprehensive picture of soil health across an entire farm. An Arduino MKR WAN 1310 board monitors the sensors and contains an onboard LoRa® transceiver.
But as the Squirrel Box team points out in their paper, smart agriculture requires trust. If farmers are to rely on this data, they need to trust that it is accurate, reliable, and tamper-proof. For that reason, they implemented decentralized communication that is robust enough to survive the failure of any single unit. They also turned to machine learning to validate the data and identify potential anomalies that might represent anything from a sensor problem to falsified data. This focus on trust makes farmers more likely to adopt smart agricultural techniques.
Designing, constructing, and launching your own model rockets is a great hobby for learning more about the world of aerodynamics, computer simulations, and physics as a whole. But when it comes to actually lighting the solid rocket fuel to achieve ignition, the user normally lights a fire directly on a fuse or lays out a reel of wire to electronically burn the propellent, both of which are not ideal.
Milos Rasic of element14 Presents, in contrast, had the idea to create a remotely operated launching system that would allow the user to simply flick a switch and press a button to achieve lift-off without the need for kilometers of wire. His ignition circuit relied on an Arduino MKR WAN 1310 to receive commands over LoRaWAN and the board, in turn, would begin charging a pair of supercapacitors via a series of MOSFETs, relays, and op-amps until they each reached about 8V. Once everything had been tested on a breadboard, Rasic soldered his components onto perfboard and arranged them inside a custom weatherproof case.
On the controller side, Rasic grabbed another MKR WAN 1310 and connected a 16×2 LCD display, a rotary encoder for making selections, and an array of switches and buttons for selecting when the system is charging, armed, and igniting the rocket. Better yet, the model rocket was also a custom design along with the launchpad.
To see this system in action, check out Rasic’s video below!
Pest monitoring is essential for the proper management of any vineyard as it allows for the early detection and management of any potential pest infestations. By regularly monitoring the vineyard, growers can identify pests at early stages and take action to prevent further damage. Monitoring can also provide valuable data on pest behaviour, seasonality, and population size. This information can be used to adjust management strategies and protect the quality of grapes harvested from the vineyard.
One of the most effective ways to monitor pests is with pheromone traps. Pheromone traps use synthetic hormone-like compounds to attract specific insects and correctly estimate their overall presence based on their number, preventing major damage and disease to the plants. Using pheromone traps can help protect vines from serious infestations, reduce pesticide use, and ensure a healthy crop. Additionally, these traps can be used to track the activity of a particular species over time which is useful for predicting when pest populations are likely to peak or decline. By knowing when insect pressure is high or low, winemakers can better plan for treatments and cultivate their land accordingly.
The value of conservation and pest control initiatives is immeasurable as the effects of climate change, biodiversity loss, and species invasions become more evident. Traps are widely used for population detection, tracking progress on projects, determining management solutions; in addition to assessing treatment performance.
Popillia japonica
Vineyard Pest Monitoring is the practice of monitoring and controlling vineyard pests, such as Popillia japonica. Popillia japonica is a species of scarab beetle native to Japan that feeds on grapevine leaves and can cause significant damage in vineyards. Traditional pest management techniques involve manual monitoring with traps or pheromone traps. These methods are labor-intensive and may not provide accurate and timely monitoring or pest control.
Our solution
We propose a solution for estimating Popillia japonica populations in vineyards using pheromone traps and Computer Vision.
This system utilizes LoRa® technology to enable remote monitoring of Popillia japonica in vineyards. Arduino Pro allows farmers to monitor Popillia japonica activity with pheromone traps and collect the data remotely. This makes it easier for farmers to detect infestations early and take action, leading to improved efficiency and higher yields. The IoT technology also helps reduce labor costs associated with manual monitoring.
By using Computer Vision in combination with LoRa® technology, real-time data of pest activity can be collected. This information allows growers to better understand the dynamics of Vineyard pests such as Popillia japonica, helping them to make more informed decisions and reduce their environmental impact. With the right monitoring tools, vineyards can now be better prepared to face the increased risk of Japanese beetle outbreaks posed by climate change. With IoT devices, there is no longer any excuse not to employ pest monitoring in vineyards. The use of IoT-based pest monitoring is not only cost-effective, but also helps to reduce the environmental impact of pesticide applications. This makes it an important tool for vineyard managers looking to protect their crops in an ever-changing environment. The future of vineyard management lies in the hands of innovative technologies like this one, enabling farmers to ensure their crops are healthy and safe. By taking advantage of the latest technologies, vineyard managers can make sure their crops are protected from infestations and ensure a successful harvest season year after year.
To address the challenge we will devise a pest monitoring system based on sensor nodes that monitor areas in the vineyard and send the collected data to a LoRa® gateway that can either display it locally or push it toward a cloud solution where further computation can be done. Either at the gateway level or in the cloud, alerts can be set based on certain thresholds considered relevant.
Bug counting
For monitoring the number of Popillia Japonica in each section of the vineyard we have chosen the Arduino Nicla Vision which is ideal for this project because of its advanced image processing capabilities. It combines a powerful Dual ARM® Cortex® M7/M4 IC processor with a 2MP color camera that supports TinyML in a compact format. The full datasheet is available here. For training the object detection model, we have chosen the Edge Impulse platform where we can easily train and deploy a model that will allow us to detect the number of bugs in the view of the camera. After the deployment, no further need of internet connectivity is needed for the camera and only the number of bugs will be relayed to the Arduino MKR WAN 1310 through UART.
Connectivity
The Arduino MKR WAN 1310 is a powerful and versatile IoT development board based on the ARM Cortex®-M0+ 32-bit processor, perfect for building connected projects. It supports the LoRa® communication protocol, making it suitable for long-range applications such as vineyard pest monitoring. Moreover, it also supports the UART, I2C, and SPI communication protocols so it can easily be interfaced with other devices. Additionally, the MKR WAN 1310 features an integrated LiPo battery charger to keep your project running 24/7. With its compact size and low energy consumption, this board can be used in a wide range of projects where connectivity is required without sacrificing power efficiency.
Thanks to its radio connectivity via LoRa® radio transceivers, the data can be sent directly to the nearest LoRa® gateway which forwards it to the Arduino IoT Cloud. The gateway, Arduino Pro WisGate Edge Pro powered by RAKwireless ensures secure and reliable connectivity for a wide range of professional applications and is suitable for medium-sized to wide area coverage in industrial environments and remote regions. Its high transmission power and 2x fiberglass antennas with 5dBi gain provide extensive coverage in open environments, making it the perfect fit for IoT commercial outdoor deployment – required for example for parking sensors, remote fleet management, livestock tracking and geofencing, and soil monitoring solutions that maximize crops’ yield.
Solving it with Arduino Pro
Now let’s explore how we could put all of this together and what we would need for deployment both in terms of hardware and software stack. The Arduino Pro ecosystem is the latest generation of Arduino solutions bringing users the simplicity of integration and scalable, secure, professionally supported services.
The Nicla Vision has been programmed in MicroPython since the Edge Impulse model was created/tested using the OpenMV IDE and thus we have also sent the number of detected bugs to the Arduino MKR WAN 1310 via UART.
The Arduino MKR WAN 1310 has been programmed in C/C++ using the Arduino IDE and the Arduino IoT Cloud and registered ontheThe Things Stack(TTS)platform. The Arduino MKR WAN 1310 acts as an end device programmed to receive the number of detected Popilia Japonica bugs from the Nicla Vision through UART and forward it to the Arduino IoT Cloud through the nearest LoRa® gateway connected to the TTS service.
Here is a screenshot from a dashboard created directly in the Arduino IoT Cloud showcasing data received from the sensor nodes:
Here is an overview of the software stack and how a minimum deployment with one of each hardware module communicates to fulfill the proposed solution:
Conclusion
By combining Computer Vision with LoRa® technology, farmers can create a reliable vineyard pest monitoring system that is capable of estimating the population of Popillia japonica quickly and accurately. With this IoT-based op-solution, farmers can monitor Popillia japonica activity in their vineyard and take action before Popillia japonica causes significant damage. This helps protect the vineyard from Popillia japonica infestations and ensures higher yields for the farmer. With Vineyard Pest Monitoring with Arduino Pro, farmers no longer need to rely on labor-intensive manual methods for Popillia japonica monitoring. Instead, they can use IoT technology to create an efficient and cost-effective pest monitoring system that provides accurate data about Popillia japonica activity in their vineyards.
In summary, pheromone traps are an important tool for protecting vineyards from pests and ensuring a healthy harvest season and great wines. Salute!
Humans are animals and like all animals, we evolved in mostly outdoor conditions where the air is nice and fresh. But modern society keeps most of us indoors the vast majority of the time, which could have negative health effects. There are many potential hazards, including a lack of sunlight and psychological effects, but CO2 may pose a more tangible risk. To keep tabs on that risk within classrooms, a team from Polytech Sorbonne built this small CO2 monitor.
This CO2 monitor performs two functions: it shows anyone nearby the CO2 levels in the area and it uploads that data over LoRaWAN to a central hub that can track the levels across many locations. A school could, for example, put one of these CO2 monitors in every classroom. An administrator could then see the CO2 levels in every room in real time, along with historical records. That would alert them to immediate dangers and to long term trends.
At the heart of this CO2 monitor is an Arduino MKR WAN 1310 development board, which has built-in LoRa® connectivity. It uses a Seeed Studio Grove CO2, temperature, and humidity sensor to monitor local conditions. To keep power consumption to a minimum, the data displays on an e-ink screen and an Adafruit TPL5110 timer only wakes the device up every ten minutes for an update. Power comes from a lithium-ion battery pack, with a DFRobot solar charger topping up the juice.
It uploads data through The Things Network to a PlatformIO web interface. An Edge Impulse machine learning model detects anomalies, so it can sound a warning even if nobody is watching. The enclosure is 3D-printable.
Humans are animals and like all animals, we evolved in mostly outdoor conditions where the air is nice and fresh. But modern society keeps most of us indoors the vast majority of the time, which could have negative health effects. There are many potential hazards, including a lack of sunlight and psychological effects, but CO2 may pose a more tangible risk. To keep tabs on that risk within classrooms, a team from Polytech Sorbonne built this small CO2 monitor.
This CO2 monitor performs two functions: it shows anyone nearby the CO2 levels in the area and it uploads that data over LoRaWAN to a central hub that can track the levels across many locations. A school could, for example, put one of these CO2 monitors in every classroom. An administrator could then see the CO2 levels in every room in real time, along with historical records. That would alert them to immediate dangers and to long term trends.
At the heart of this CO2 monitor is an Arduino MKR WAN 1310 development board, which has built-in LoRa® connectivity. It uses a Seeed Studio Grove CO2, temperature, and humidity sensor to monitor local conditions. To keep power consumption to a minimum, the data displays on an e-ink screen and an Adafruit TPL5110 timer only wakes the device up every ten minutes for an update. Power comes from a lithium-ion battery pack, with a DFRobot solar charger topping up the juice.
It uploads data through The Things Network to a PlatformIO web interface. An Edge Impulse machine learning model detects anomalies, so it can sound a warning even if nobody is watching. The enclosure is 3D-printable.
Humans are animals and like all animals, we evolved in mostly outdoor conditions where the air is nice and fresh. But modern society keeps most of us indoors the vast majority of the time, which could have negative health effects. There are many potential hazards, including a lack of sunlight and psychological effects, but CO2 may pose a more tangible risk. To keep tabs on that risk within classrooms, a team from Polytech Sorbonne built this small CO2 monitor.
This CO2 monitor performs two functions: it shows anyone nearby the CO2 levels in the area and it uploads that data over LoRaWAN to a central hub that can track the levels across many locations. A school could, for example, put one of these CO2 monitors in every classroom. An administrator could then see the CO2 levels in every room in real time, along with historical records. That would alert them to immediate dangers and to long term trends.
At the heart of this CO2 monitor is an Arduino MKR WAN 1310 development board, which has built-in LoRa® connectivity. It uses a Seeed Studio Grove CO2, temperature, and humidity sensor to monitor local conditions. To keep power consumption to a minimum, the data displays on an e-ink screen and an Adafruit TPL5110 timer only wakes the device up every ten minutes for an update. Power comes from a lithium-ion battery pack, with a DFRobot solar charger topping up the juice.
It uploads data through The Things Network to a PlatformIO web interface. An Edge Impulse machine learning model detects anomalies, so it can sound a warning even if nobody is watching. The enclosure is 3D-printable.
The Things Stack (TTS) and Arduino Cloud are now fully interfaced and open up a world of connected opportunities. When you configure a LoRaWAN device now, it’ll automatically be registered on The Things Stack platform, too.
An abbreviation of long range wide area network, LoRaWAN is a very low power wireless connectivity system, much like Wi-Fi. But it operates on a different (unlicensed) frequency that’s able to transmit and receive signals a lot further. It boasts distances that are measured in kilometers, rather than meters, as with WiFi or Bluetooth.
LoRa isn’t new to Arduino, of course. But now your devices can make use of over 22,000 public gateways around the world that are connected to the TTS service. In a very over-simplified way, these gateways translate radio packets into internet packets. A radio signal effectively becomes data sent over the internet, and vice versa. This vastly extends wireless internet coverage and connects remote IoT devices to your Arduino Cloud.
It’s not just about putting sensors, devices or projects in remote or rural locations, though. It’s about connecting to the internet where there is no Wi-Fi, and without the need for a costly cellular data connection. And it’s power consumption is very low. So a lot of these far distant devices can run on batteries or solar power.
Things, Things and More Things
When you configure a new LoRaWAN compatible device in your Arduino Cloud, such as a MKR WAN 1300, it’s now automatically registered as a device on The Things Stack.
You’ll automatically see a new menu during setup, which lets you select your region. This is important, as different regions and countries use different LoRaWAN frequency bands.
And that’s it! No need for you to do anything else. Easily the simplest and fastest way to connect to LoRa devices in an Arduino project. Or any electronics project, for that matter, since Arduino Cloud lets you seamlessly connect all kinds of different devices.
Complete the setup just as you would with any other device on Arduino Cloud. Sync your variables, connect your devices, build your dashboards. As long as your board is in range of a TTS-connected gateway, it’s part of your Arduino Cloud. Just as if it was sitting next to you on your Wi-Fi network, even though it might be 15 kilometers away! Or you could set up your very own LoRaWAN gateway that supports TTS, if you don’t have one in range.
There’s a more detailed tutorial over on Arduino Docs, although it’s not a complex procedure by any means. It’s got some excellent advice on setting up and accessing The Things Console, which LoRa fans will find very useful. Then there’s a quick and easy test project to make sure everything’s working as you want it to.
It’s still early days for LoRa. But any Arduino lover who takes an interest in this exciting technology will quickly get hooked on it, and the possibilities it offers. Tell us all about your LoRa projects over on social media, and how you’re building them on Arduino Cloud.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we interact with people, things, and the world around us. We’re calling on the community to use an Arduino Nano or MKR board to build solutions that can help us practice better social distancing, improve queue management, or enable touch-free technologies.
Stepping out from our homes, to go to schools, factories, offices and pursue leisure pastimes all these will need to change as lockdown restrictions are eased. With terms like social distancing, remote learning and remote working becoming the norm, let’s see how your ideas can help the world move forward and rebuild everyday life based on a project in one of these two categories.
Category 1: Touch-Free
Create a solution that can be applied to devices that currently rely upon manually pushing a button e.g. elevators, pedestrian crossings, door entry systems, sanitizer dispensers, etc.
Category 2: Social Distance Enablement and Tracking
Create a solution that will allow individuals to maintain the recommended distance apart (1m to 2m) to safely work in the office, factory, commute to work on public transport, or socially interact in cafes and parks. The time people spend within close proximity to each other may also be a factor considered within the design.
N.B. The purpose of the competition is to create products and solutions that are ready to help people around the world to move forward with their lives and safely emerge from lockdown restrictions, rather than developing medical devices.
Contest Scope and Schedule
As any potential solution may be required to operate in a variety of environments, important factors to consider as part of the design process are reliability, durability, connectivity, and power management — hence the option to base your project on any Arduino Nano or MKR board.
The Arduino MKR Family represents the ideal solution for emerging battery powered IoT edge applications. All of the MKR boards share a common pinout for developers to easily shift between wireless communication protocols with minimal software changes, and in a cost efficient manner.
The Arduino Nano Family offers a tiny format, powerful processors and excellent reliability. All of the Nano boards can run embedded machine learning (AI).
Phase 2: Submit your project — Deadline July 14th, 2020: Submit your project for a chance to win up to $10,000 worth of prizes!
Prizes
We are giving away tens of thousands of dollars in prizes to the top five projects, including product assessment and marketing support to bring your project to market! Our judges are going to pick the best qualifying projects based on the judging criteria outlined in the rules section.
Grand Prize
$5,000 voucher for hardware on the Newark online store $750 of pre-manufacturing assessment with Dragon Innovation $5,000 towards product marketing with Hackster.io
Touch-Free
1st Place — Touch-Free
$1,500 voucher for hardware on the Newark online store $750 of pre-manufacturing assessment with Dragon Innovation $3,000 towards product marketing with Hackster.io
2nd Place — Touch-Free
$500 voucher for hardware on the Newark online store $750 of pre-manufacturing assessment with Dragon Innovation $2,000 towards product marketing with Hackster.io
Social Distance Enablement & Tracking
1st Place — Social Distance Enablement & Tracking
$1,500 voucher for hardware on the Newark online store $750 of pre-manufacturing assessment with Dragon Innovation $3,000 towards product marketing with Hackster.io
2nd Place — Social Distance Enablement & Tracking
$500 voucher for hardware on the Newark online store $750 of pre-manufacturing assessment with Dragon Innovation $2,000 towards product marketing with Hackster.io
An important new feature is now available in the Arduino IoT Cloud — full support for LoRa® devices!
LoRa® is one of our favorite emerging technologies for IoT because it enables long-range and low power transmission of data without using cellular or WiFi connections. It’s a very powerful and promising technology but it comes with its own complexity. In our pursuit to make IoT easier, we’ve already released a few products that enable anyone to build a LoRa® device (or a fleet of LoRa® devices!). Thanks to the Arduino MKR WAN 1310 board, combined with the Arduino Pro Gateway you can create your own LoRaWAN network. But we have decided to do more than that, and it’s time to release one more important piece….
The Arduino IoT Cloud now provides an incredibly easy way to collect data sent by your LoRa® devices. With a few clicks, the IoT Cloud will generate a sketch template for the boards that you can adapt to read data from your sensors, pre-process it as you want, and then send it to the IoT Cloud. With a few more clicks (no coding required), you’ll be able to create a graphical dashboard that displays the collected data in real-time and lets users see their history through charts and other widgets. You will not need to worry about coding your own compression, serialization and queueing algorithm, as it will all be done under the hood in a smart way — you’ll be able to transmit multiple properties (more than five), pushing the boundary beyond the packet size limits of LoRaWAN!
This is our take on edge computing — you program the device to collect and prepare your data locally, and then we take care of shipping such data to a centralized place.
Such a simplified tool for data collection is already quite innovative, but we decided to take it an important step further. All the available solutions for LoRa® currently focus on collecting data, but they do not address it from the other way round i.e. sending data from a centralized application to the LoRa® device(s). Arduino IoT Cloud now lets you do this — you’ll be able to control actuators connected to your device by sending messages via LoRa®, with no coding needed.
Build and control your own LoRaWAN network with Arduino IoT Cloud, the Pro Gateway and the new improved MKR WAN 1310 board that features the latest low-power architecture to extend the battery life and enable the power consumption to go as low as 104uA.
We’re excited to announce the launch of the Arduino MKR WAN 1310, which offers a practical and cost-effective solution for those looking to add LoRa connectivity to their projects.
The new MKR WAN 1310 enables you to connect your sensors and actuators over long distances harnessing the power of the LoRa wireless protocol or throughout LoRaWAN networks.
To your own LoRa network using the Arduino Pro Gateway for LoRa
To existing LoRaWAN infrastructure like The Things Network
Or even to other boards using the direct connectivity mode
The latest low-power architecture has considerably improved the battery life on the MKR WAN 1310. When properly configured, the power consumption is now as low as 104uA! It is also possible to use the USB port to supply power (5V) to the board; run the board with or without batteries – the choice is yours.
Based on the Microchip SAM D21 low-power processor and a Murata CMWX1ZZABZ LoRa module, the MKR WAN 1310 comes complete with an ECC508 crypto chip, a battery charger and 2MByte SPI Flash, as well as improved control of the board’s power consumption.
Data logging and other OTA (Over-the-Air) functions are now possible since the inclusion of the on board 2MByte Flash. This new exciting feature will let you transfer configuration files from the infrastructure onto the board, create your own scripting commands, or simply store data locally to send it whenever the connectivity is best. While the MKR WAN 1310’s crypto chip adds further security by storing credentials and certificates in the embedded secure element.
These features make it the perfect IoT node and building block for low-power wide area IoT devices.
Planet Arduino is, or at the moment is wishing to become, an aggregation of public weblogs from around the world written by people who develop, play, think on Arduino platform and his son. The opinions expressed in those weblogs and hence this aggregation are those of the original authors. Entries on this page are owned by their authors. We do not edit, endorse or vouch for the contents of individual posts. For more information about Arduino please visit www.arduino.cc
You are currently browsing the archives for the MKR WAN 1310 category.
and the board, in turn, would begin charging a pair of supercapacitors via a series of MOSFETs, relays, and op-amps until they each reached about 8V. Once everything had been tested on a breadboard, Rasic soldered his components onto perfboard and arranged them inside a custom weatherproof case.
network. But we have decided to do more than that, and it’s time to release one more important piece….
