Open Access

ARTICLE

New Hybrid IoT LoRaWAN/IRC Sensors: SMART Water Metering System

Vlastimil Slany¹, Petr Koudelka^1,*, Eva Krcalova¹, Jan Jobbagy², Lukas Danys³, Rene Jaros³, Zdenek Slanina³, Michal Prauzek³, Radek Martinek³

1 Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Agrisciences, Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Engineering, 613 00, Brno, Czechia
2 Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Machines and Production Biosystems, 94976, Nitra, Slovakia
3 VSB–Technical University of Ostrava, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Cybernetics and Biomedical Engineering, 708 00, Ostrava-Poruba, Czechia

* Corresponding Author: Petr Koudelka. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2022, 71(3), 5201-5217. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2022.021349

Received 30 June 2021; Accepted 18 August 2021; Issue published 14 January 2022

Abstract

The massive development of internet of things (IoT) technologies is gaining momentum across all areas of their possible deployment—spanning from Industry 4.0 to eHealth, smart city, agriculture or waste management. This ongoing development is further pushed forward by the gradual deployment of 5G networks. With 5G capable smart devices, it will be possible to transfer more data with shorter latency thereby resulting in exciting new use cases such as Massive IoT. Massive-IoT (low-power wide area network-LPWAN) enables improved network coverage, long device operational lifetime and a high density of connections. Despite all the advantages of massive-IoT technology, there are certain cases where the original concept cannot be used. Among them are dangerous explosive environments or issues caused by subsurface deployment (operation during winter months or dense greenery). This article presents the concept of a hybrid solution of IoT LoRaWAN (long range wide area network)/IRC-VLC (infrared communication, visible light communication) technology, which combines advantages of both technologies according to the deployment scenario.

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Keywords

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