Sub-GHz wireless mesh solution for precision farming

Date: 22/09/2022
Precision farming/agriculture is about using electronics and communication technology to monitor the growth of crop and also provide water, fertilisers, and any resources for the growth and also protecting crop from diseases. Here in this article we are talking about a solution by company in providing right amount of water for the crops using wireless control tech. Using soil moisture sensors and water valves, the right amount of water can be fed to plants by having wireless monitoring and control of flow of water throughout the agricultural farm land.

The wireless solution provider Radiocrafts, is offering Sub-GHz wireless mesh solution calld RIIM to manage automatically smart irrigation system.

This new wireless system supports connectivity to devices where mobile network coverage is not available. By providing reliable communication, this system enables collection of moisture sensor data and also control valves.

The solution is embedded in a RF module which uses a wireless network without any license fees. The mesh network is self-forming, self-feeding and self optimising, and it covers wide area of 80 to 80 kms, with a communication distance range of 1400 meters between devices. A single router can control thousand devices.

RIIM Supports adoptive frequency agility for high throughput and maintains time synchronisation by also featuring faulting node detection.

The water valves are controlled using symmetrical communication, that means RIIM is designed to handle downlinK and uplink communication efficiently and effectively. The system also supports Over the air filmware updates, without a person going into the agriculture farming field to update the software.

Most importantly the system can be driven by 2 AA batteries for two years, by having lot of circuitry go to sleep mode as soon as it does its job.
A RIIM node can stay on for 10 years powered by a CR2772 (870 mAh capacity coin cell battery) while sending 12 bytes every hour, 24 hours per day.

The system also supports to directly interface to any sensor/actuator used for soil moisture sensing, light sensing for photosynthesis, rain sensing, temperature and also wind sensing.

To know more on this visit:
https://radiocrafts.com/applications/smart-irrigation/













What makes RIIM an ideal solution for Smart Irrigation Systems?

Highly Scalable Network – Cover an entire semi-rural open environment as large as 80 x 80 km² (50 x 50 mi²) or a residential area with up to 1000 sensors on a single gateway.
Very Low Power for Battery Operation – RIIM can support 2 years battery life on 2 AA batteries, for example.
Unmatched robustness in data transmission success rates – RIIM supports channel hopping which enables a data packet success rate of 99.99%.
Long Range – Long range with the possibility to have up to 1000 devices in a single network reduces the cost of installation as less gateways are needed to support a large-scale deployment. RIIM also supports a radio communication range of up to 1400 meters between devices in an open semi-rural area simplifying radio coverage planning.
Symmetrical 2-way communication – Essential for collecting sensor readings, controlling devices such as valves (Open valve in just a few seconds), and over-the-air updates for touchless firmware updates.
High-throughput networking with minimal packet loss – RIIM has the possibility to take the duty cycle in Europe from 1% to 40% which is essential to keep up with the vast amounts of data communication required by a modern Smart Irrigation deployment.
Time-synchronization – Management of exact start and stop times for certain events such as, starting irrigation of a certain part of the field immediately after irrigation stops in another part of the field to decrease water pressure in the pipes.
Radiocrafts’ ICI Framework – Embedded in the module, it allows you to directly interface to virtually any sensor/actuator, such as soil moisture sensors, UV sensors, rain/freeze sensors, wind sensors, and more.
And much more!

You can learn more about our state-of-the-art RIIM solution for Smart Irrigation Systems on our dedicated Smart Irrigation landing page.

Smart Irrigation Systems

Schedule a meeting with Radiocrafts at the Irrigation Show on the 5th – 9th of December in Las Vegas, Nevada, Booth number 946! Looking forward to meeting you there!

Want to test RIIM for your own Smart Irrigation projects? Buy a development kit or samples from Radiocrafts from Digi-Key or from a distribution partner near you!

Author: Srinivasa Reddy N
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