There is an increased interest in outdoor long-range connectivity technology for smart agriculture, and for good reason.
Feeding and taking care of livestock such as cows, sheep, and poultry, for example, is an essential task for farmers. Attaching internet of things (IoT) sensors to livestock using collar tags will allow location tracking and help monitor livestock by keeping track of physical activities.
Seeing this trend, NEWRACOM, a California-based IoT-enabled wireless connectivity chipsets manufacturer, has partnered with Tokyo-headquartered Beatcraft, which provides wireless communication solutions for embedded devices.
The goal is to deploy various intelligent agriculture applications by using an IoT solution based on IEEE 802.11ah standard.
NEWRACOM said in a media release that it provides Beatcraft with the world's first 802.11ah Wi-Fi system on chip (SoC) – the NRC7292 – and the Wi-Fi SOC module NRM7292M.
Beatcraft will then deploy an 802.11ah embedded module on the latest Raspberry Pi 3 compatible I/O connector for rapid prototyping and testing of wireless devices. The module is a complete hardware and software platform for creating or evaluating wireless sensors, controllers, and actuators.
It also provides software development tool for users to develop and operate the customized software which can be best fitted with each use case in smart agriculture.
A wireless networking protocol published in 2017, the IEEE 802.11ah is also called Wi-Fi HaLow.
Dr. Sok Kyu Lee, CEO at NEWRACOM, said that smart farming using HaLow will promote farming practices that would improve profitability for farmers, private entities, and even human life.
“Our HaLow solution will be momentum to accelerate the emergence of various use cases such as field management, equipment tracking, greenhouse farming, energy and water conservation,” Dr. Masashi Takemoto, CEO at BeatCraft.
