ISBN 978-1-6654-3986-2

Smart Infrastructure Monitoring using LoRaWAN

Technology
2021 International Conference on System, Computation, Automation and Networking (ICSCAN) | 978-1-6654-3986-2/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICSCAN53069.2021.9526490

Priyanka Chaudhari Aman Kumar Tiwari Shardul Pattewar S. N. Shelke

Dept. of Computer Engineering Dept. of Computer Engineering Dept. of Computer Engineering Dept. of Computer Engineering
Sinhagad Academy of Engineering Sinhagad Academy of Engineering Sinhagad Academy of Engineering Sinhagad Academy of Engineering
Pune, India Pune, India Pune, India Pune, India
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—An online monitoring system for manhole covers significant distance transmission qualities have great
in a smart city environment is proposed. We have used LoRa development expectations in the field of IoT [3][4].
physical layer for wireless transmission and LoRaWAN
protocol for cloud connectivity. The system incorporates sensor Our paper proposes a LoRaWAN based system to monitor
nodes, LoRaWAN network and application at the backend. manhole covers utilized in sewage systems in smart city
LoRaWAN based IoT has an extremely low power requirement
for significant distance transmission. We have employed an
environments. In developing nations, checking the wellbeing
accelerometer sensor to monitor the position, removal or harm of a manhole cover is a difficult issue. Frequently, manhole
of manhole covers in sewage systems. When these covers are covers are harmed or stolen due to a few mishaps and deaths.
moved or harmed, the LoRa board transmits the signal, Our system detects the manhole cover and its health. In the
cautioning the nearest gateway associated with The Things event of damage or theft, it hints the cloud-based server in
Network (TTN), a cloud-based open source LoRaWAN
platform. The TTN sends an alarm to the support division of real- time, and the server alerts the concerned officers or
the civic authorities to take corrective actions. Such innovative personnel about the equivalent to make the vital move as
applications can be displayed for monitoring and controlling quickly as time permits.
different parameters in the smart city.

Index Terms—LoRa, LoRaWAN, Smart City, The Things II. LORAWAN AND TTN
Network, Manhole Cover, Accelerometer, Atom, Micropython,
Pymakr Since the Semtech organization created the LoRa
extraordinary chip [2] in 2013, LoRa has been rapidly
I. INTRODUCTION advanced in Europe and America. LoRa has been applied to
utility meters, transportation, structures, natural checking and
different fields. LoRaWAN is a type of wide area network.
Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) based
LoRa is a physical layer technology, whereas LoRaWAN
Internet of Things (IoT) has many applications in the smart facilitates the network connection through the Internet and
city environment and is getting deployed at an extremely hence gets connected to the cloud. From the technical point, it
high rate. These technologies are designed to emphasize low provides low power facility, long-distance for communication,
cost devices, small-sized data with low bandwidth, longer wide range of distribution, a small amount of signal
battery life, a large number of devices, and extended transmission data, economical construction with low data rate,
coverage. The advancements in IoT is in all phases of etc. are the key characteristics which are very useful in the
industry and markets. It characterizes the methods of monitoring of manhole covers, as compared to current
designing, managing and maintaining the networks, data, technologies [5]. It also works on free frequency ranges of the
cloud and connections. IoT applications use low complexity ISM band. In India, the frequency range for LoRa technology,
or we can say, for LoRaWAN is 865 MHz, and it is again
and energy-efficient nodes in different settings on wide area
license-free. The block diagram of LoRaWAN network is as
networks [1]. To help such necessities, a low-power IoT, shown in Fig. 1. LoRa-based IoT sensor nodes are wirelessly
called LoRa (Long Range) [2] based networks, was connected to LoRaWAN gateway. The LoRaWAN gateway is
introduced. LoRa based LPWAN covers larger regions, low also connected to a cloud network server through IP networks.
data rate and long battery life. Low power utilization and The network server is connected to various application servers.

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Fig. 1. Block diagram of LoRaWAN network

IV. IMPLEMENTATION
In our case, it is connected to manhole cover applications.
There is a gateway to network server security as well as sensor The design of proposed LoRaWAN based system to
node to application server security. Hence, LoRaWAN based monitor manhole covers used in sewage systems and its
networks are considered as highly secured networks [6]. hardware setup is as shown in Fig. 3. We have Pycom’s LoPy4
Pysense nodes, accelerometer sensors, nano-gateway, and TTN
LoRa-alliance [7] has developed LoRaWAN, a protocol to network and application server. Pysense board has an inbuilt
connect LoRa to the network. The Things Network (TTN) [8], accelerometer and many more sensors. Pycom Lopy 4 is a
which is a part of the LoRa-alliance, is an open source platform microcontroller that can be fixed on the boards and store all the
to construct IoT applications and connect to the cloud with data. LoRa nodes and gateway are programmed and configured
minimal price with the greatest security, end-to-end encrypted by using microPython. The accelerometer sensors sense the
and secured communication. The TTN is a drive to fabricate an damage and theft of cover using angle algorithms running
overall open source framework to work with a public IoT and periodically. When there is movement of the manhole cover,
permits sensor nodes to share the data on the cloud. As the the accelerometer sensor sends the signal to the LoRa node,
measure of traffic produced by nodes is extremely restricted, which transmits RF signals wirelessly in the unlicensed
clients can share the admittance to their routes, which permits frequency band for long-distance. This signal is received by
the organization to have a more noteworthy inclusion. There the nearby LoRa nano-gateway, which is connected to the TTN
are presently over TTN 300 networks around the world. The server [9][10]. The data gets uploaded to the cloud and stored,
Things Network provides a feature to create applications, and it will alert the maintenance department for repairing
register the device, and connect it to the application server. purposes.
The firmware update of all the used boards was done and
then programmed using microPython and Pymakr in Atom
III. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE IDE. To configure the Pysense node, we have utilized a tilt
angle strategy for working of the accelerometer sensor. There
In the system, structure of the intelligent manhole cover can be shift manhole covers from any angle; it is appropriate to
monitoring system is separated into three steps: the location utilize a triaxial accelerometer thinking about the accuracy of
condition sensor, i.e. accelerometer and other environmental the measurement. According to the tilt angle method, an index
parameter sensors, are liable for the continuous checking of of the state of the manhole cover is our tilt angle. Along with
the manhole cover state, gathering data will be sending this, the orientation angles are depending upon the order in
off to the LoRa gateway. We are using Pycom LoPy boards which we are applying rotations. Different rotation sequence
in our setup, and it is configured as a single channel nano- may bring in a similar posture, in similar posture have
gateways for demonstration purpose. The nano-gateway distinctive pitch and roll, that is the reason we need to
characterize a default arrangement: Yaw-Pitch-Roll (ψ-θ-ϕ).
sends the received data to the TTN with the goal that the
The formula for calculation yaw pitch roll is
upper layer can measure, dissect and store information and
alert the maintenance department. In the system, the nano-
gateway goes about as a halfway association, and the uplink
is answerable for the data get-together and information
transferring of each sensor node. The block schematic of the (1)
prosed system is as shown in Fig. 2. TTN application servers
can be configured for sending alerts to the maintenance
department of civic authorities. The alerts in terms of SMS or
emails can be generated periodically or wherever something
goes wrong with the manhole cover.

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Fig. 2. Block schematic of manhole cover monitoring system

V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

PyCom nodes can also be configured as single-channel

There are two methods to activate the nodes to send data
nanogateways for LoRaWAN. We have programmed one of
from the nodes to the network: Over The Air Activation
the nodes as a LoRa nanogateway to receive the LoRa signal
(OTAA) and Activation By Personalization (ABP) method. In
from sensing LoRa nodes. The nanogateway is connected to
OTAA, a join request is sent from the node to the network. The
the Internet so that it can send data to the TTN server. On the
network then checks the Application EUI, Device EUI and
TTN server, we have configured an application to decode the
Application Key provided by the node. If the Application EUI,
data and is integrated with Webhooks service which is an
Device EUI and Application Key are valid, a join accept
applet and acts like an API and allows to integrate other
message is sent back to the node, which triggers an event to be
services like TTN on IFTTT (If This Then That) with projects
a secured network. In ABP, there is no handshaking between
via simple web requests which will be transfer to maintenance
the node and the network. As soon as the node performs a join
department in form of email. When the manhole cover is
action, it can start sending data. The Application Session Key
abnormal, it will send out an alarm message to notify the
and the Network Session Key are set once in both the node and
relevant departments to repair and realize the municipal
The Things Network server then an event is triggered in a
manhole cover's periodical supervision. The proposed
secured network.
placement of the LoRa node on the manhole cover is as shown
in Fig. 4

Fig. 4 Manhole cover placement

Fig. 3. Hardware setup of the project

The captured data is sent to the registered TTN gateway. The
screenshot of measured accelerometer readings in terms of
roll, pitch and yaw are shown in Fig. 5.

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Fig. 5. Accelerometer readings of the node

Figure 6 shows the activated nano-gateway results in terms of PUSH and PULL acknowledgements.

Fig. 6: Nanogateway sending the acknowledgement to the TTN

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The TTN gateway traffic is as shown in Fig. 7. The received packets can be decoded by using the application server.

Fig. 7. TTN nano-gateway traffic

Fig. 8. Alert received to maintenance department using IFTTT integration

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VI. FUTURE SCOPE REFERENCES

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