Development of a LoRaWAN level sensor

The situation

A factory automation company wanted to expand its range of previously wired ultrasonic sensors to include wireless LoRaWAN sensors. The transmission of data via wireless technology would open up completely new application scenarios and allow sensor-to-cloud solutions to be implemented.

The future sensor should be able to remotely monitor and subsequently process fill levels of containers, tanks and silos, as well as water levels of rivers and lakes. It should also be battery-powered and, in addition to status information, be able to forward the geo-position of a container via a LoRaWAN connection to a defined acceptance point on the Internet.

The solution

In several workshops, a concept was developed together with the company. m2m Germany developed a proof-of-concept (PoC) according to the requirements and conducted a feasibility study. In order to meet all requirements, different radio technologies were used:

• Bluetooth 5.0
• GNSS
• LoRaWAN

Therefore, various interface modules had to be integrated into the hardware. Furthermore, the battery of the LoRaWAN level sensor should last as long as possible, so very energy-efficient components were selected. In the project, m2m Germany mainly took over the integration of the radio technologies. The customer brought in the whole know-how around the ultrasonic measurement module.

Whatever it takes:

• Wireless sensor variant opens up completely new application scenarios
• Transmission of data over long distances possible
• Connection to cloud solution, i.e. data is available for further use and analysis
• Suitable for industrial use, can be used indoors and outdoors

Learn even more about OEM development and radio integration