Initial Design and Implementation of an Edge-to-Edge LoRaWAN Data Collection System

Democratizing established research infrastructure yields profound beneficial effects on local regions, especially with sensor networks deployed through environmental research. The active deployment of sensor networks and IoT workflows that stem from these research projects, if made accessible to the public, allow for a level of longevity to research infrastructure and the re-purposing of the research products for public gain. In this paper, we present a data collection system designed for an NSF-sponsored CSSI project which both collects environmental data from sensor networks deployed around the Lake Tahoe Basin and makes the research data/infrastructure available to entities around those deployment sites. Due to the massive coverage of the research area and nature of the data, the system described in this paper makes use of emerging LPWAN technologies and affordable LoRaWAN gateways to handle the edge-to-edge communication. The data is streamed over a long distance to the University of Nevada, Reno, and managed with Apache NiFi. Additional hardware/software configurations outside of the project are also made available, due to a deployment of the Things Stack. It is envisaged that the approach described in this paper can be the first step in establishing a foothold to create transformative real-time ‘crowd-participating’ data services.