Agro-Belogorye used LoRaWAN and ARIES PR200 technologies to centralize microclimate monitoring

2024: Implementation of LoRaWAN and ARIES PR200 technology to centralize microclimate monitoring

On February 21, 2024, it became known that the ARIES PR200 and LoRaWAN technologies were used by the Agro-Belogorye group of companies to centralize microclimate monitoring. With the help of 37 base stations connected to the AirBit LoRaWAN Network Server, readings from water meters are now sent to the AirBit IoT Workspace platform to monitor current readings, water consumption, and excess flow rates.

As reported, to manage the microclimate of all complexes, the company uses more than 700 controllers installed at reproduction, rearing and fattening sites. They control ventilation and heating, ensuring optimal temperature and humidity conditions, controlling the concentration of harmful gases and the speed of air flows. Microclimate of each section of pig complex is controlled by controller installed in it.

To remotely monitor the situation at all sites, it was decided to centralize the microclimate dispatching system. This approach provides remote access to data for all sites and allows you to quickly receive information about emerging emergency situations and respond to them. On the other hand, a wireless network has already been deployed in the complex, the bandwidth of which made it possible to collect data from microclimate controllers, which, among other things, had a positive effect on the effectiveness of the holding's investments in building LoRaWAN networks. The use of the network made it possible not only to save money, but also to carry out the project as soon as possible, integrating all sites into the dispatching system, as well as add data to the water supply dispatching control system deployed on the basis of AirBit IoT Workspace.

Establishing a wired network would be too costly, as it is necessary to collect data from all sites of the complex located at a distance from each other. Also an important factor was the difficulty of laying wired routes in working complexes - it was necessary to enter clean zones, where work can be carried out in short periods of time and according to rather complex standards of work regulations in such zones. In addition, the sections are connected by long corridors, which entails additional costs. told Nikolai Spirin, CTO of AirBit

To implement the transfer of microclimate control controller data through the LoRaWAN network, a non-standard approach had to be provided. Despite the fact that the controllers give data using the Modbus protocol, the format of this data is different from the format in which the RS-485 converter (ModBus) -LoRaWAN used in the project works. In this project, ARIES PR200 was used to collect data from microclimate control controllers and convert them into a format "understood" by the converter. Thanks to the presence of two interfaces RS-485 ARIES PR200 can simultaneously work both in Master mode and in Slave mode: on one interface - poll registers with the necessary parameters of the microclimate computer and arrange them, and on the second - transfer data to the ModBus-LorRaWAN converter. With ARIES, registers were PR200 ordered so that data transmission would proceed with a minimum number of surveys.

In addition, within the framework of the platform, data on water consumption and climatic indicators of each section are visualized in a single interface. In addition to summary reports, there are personal accounts for each of the sites with hierarchically divided user roles. Employees have access to the information they need for their role in the system.

As a result, the customer got the opportunity to remotely monitor the state of the parameters of the premises in which the animals are kept. The dynamics of changes in microclimate parameters provided by the platform when compared with the dynamics of changes in animal condition helps production and branching specialists in analyzing the situation on farms and selecting the optimal microclimate for the best animal keeping. noted Nikolai Spirin