Successful smart village applications based on LoRaWAN technology at the joint stand of LEG Thüringen: a model village shows how digitalisation succeeds in rural areas. Hall P2, stand C 115.
Schimberg and Berlin, 27 October 2022: Alpha-Omega Technology GmbH & Co. KG, expert in municipal Internet of Things projects, will be present at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona from 15 to 17 November. At the joint stand of the Thüringen state development agency (LEG Thüringen), visitors gain insights into the smart village project SMARTinfeld in the village of Martinfeld in the Eichsfeld district of Thuringia. For more than five years, Alpha-Omega Technology has been testing sensor-based LoRaWAN IoT applications here under realistic conditions in cooperation with the municipality and optimising them for rural areas: from intelligent street lighting and measuring road surface temperatures, soil moisture sensors and traffic counters for traffic management to monitoring transformer stations. As a next step, test projects in environmental sensing are planned, for example to detect forest fire risks early. The findings and skills are intended to benefit IoT projects in other communities.
It is mostly digitalisation projects in cities, the smart city, that receive media attention. But the solutions implemented there are not always sensible for rural areas. Small municipalities have different needs and therefore place different demands on IoT projects than urban areas. Digitalisation can bring great benefits to rural communities in particular, for example when sensors in sparsely populated areas signal the failure of street lights. A village with a modern infrastructure has a locational advantage: modern citizen services help attract young families and, with them, urgently needed skilled workers. IoT solutions can also ease existing staff shortages. Fill level sensors, for example, optimise the staffing of refuse collection when public glass containers are emptied as needed rather than on fixed dates.
SMARTinfeld: a joint model project of business and municipality
Five years ago, in the Thuringian village of Martinfeld, Jan Bose, managing director of the local IoT company Alpha-Omega Technology, and the then district mayor Gerhard Stitz launched SMARTinfeld, a model project for smart village applications. Jan Bose says: "Our company is based in Martinfeld, so we are the driving force behind the project. The expert know-how from our many years of IoT project experience flows directly into the development of the SMARTinfeld model village." The technical basis is a Long Range Wide Area Network, LoRaWAN for short. This radio technology needs only little energy to transmit measurement and sensor data over long distances, up to ten kilometres in rural areas. For LoRaWAN, the market also offers a wide selection of sensors for use cases beyond the classic spectrum of heating valves or parking sensors. The necessary infrastructure is provided by Alpha-Omega Technology, which is also in charge of project management.
Monitored remotely: street lights, road surfaces or bee colonies
As a first step towards becoming a smart village, in 2017 and 2018 the municipality of Martinfeld converted its entire street lighting, around 100 lights, to modern LED luminaires controlled via LoRaWAN. Since then, sensors detect faulty LEDs. Where required, they also control the switching time of each individual lamp so that the municipality saves energy. The project set the course for today's digital services in Martinfeld: measuring probes are embedded in the asphalt of the roads to determine the temperature of the road surface, with the cable and radio unit located next to the carriageway. The municipality can thus monitor the condition of the road or deploy the winter service as needed. Once the LoRaWAN network is in place, citizens can also use it for their own small projects. One example: there are sensor-based IoT solutions for beekeepers that allow them to monitor their bee colonies remotely, which means less stress during inspections, for the bees and for the beekeeper.
Smart villages have special requirements
Rural municipalities differ from urban areas not only in their use cases. If IoT applications in sparsely populated areas are to cover a larger area, several municipalities and thus authorities are often involved, and the need for coordination increases. In addition, people in the countryside often identify strongly with their community. They look very closely at which innovations are introduced and discuss their benefits, which increases the effort needed for communication and persuasion. Jan Bose explains: "In rural communities, aspects such as data protection and the opinion of residents, alongside reliable technology, are decisive for successfully establishing an IoT project. Minimal data volumes ensure low power consumption and at the same time a high level of data protection, because only the data that is strictly necessary is used. With a direct added value visible to the population through improvements in everyday life and comprehensible savings in the public budget, support for municipal IoT projects rises significantly."
Environmental sensors for agriculture and forestry
As a next step, SMARTinfeld will mainly implement test projects in environmental sensing. Weather stations and the monitoring of soil properties are of particular interest to agriculture and forestry, with sensors measuring temperature, soil moisture and precipitation, for example. A LoRaWAN IoT can also help detect forest fire risks as early as possible, using a multi-sensor that records temperature, humidity, air pressure and various gases such as hydrogen, carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide. In rivers and lakes, sensors provide information on water quality, and ultrasonic sensors on bridges monitor water levels.
Contact on site
Jan Bose, managing director of Alpha-Omega Technology, will be available on site for questions and background information.
Joint stand of LEG Thüringen
Hall P2, stand C 115