Sigfox weather monitoring system:Working,Benefits,Limitations,Solution Providers

Introduction : The world is facing increasing climate variability, rapidly changing weather patterns and escalating risk to agriculture, infrastructure and human wellbeing. Traditional weather monitoring stations are often expensive, complex, hard to install in remote areas and reliant on power and network infrastructure.

Sigfox enabled weather monitoring systems can deliver real time environmental data from fields, forests, greenhouses or urban settings with minimal maintenance and infrastructure. Sigfox based systems help to track rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind, barometric pressure or soil moisture.

Sigfox weather monitoring system architecture & Working

The system consists of environmental sensors with sigfox radio module, Sigfox Base station/Gateway, Backend/Cloud Platform and user/application layer.

Sigfox end devices in this use case include one or several environmental sensors, e.g. temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind speed/direction, solar radiation, barometric pressure, etc. May also include auxiliary sensors (light, dust/air quality) depending on application. Can be standalone station (weather station) or modular nodes.

Following points describe working of the system.

• Sensors collect data from environment as per its types and transmit the same to sigfox network with the help of sigfox radio module.
• Sigfox base stations or Gateways receive messages and forward them to the sigfox cloud.
• The cloud forwards them via callbacks or API to the user application. The stored data can also be visualized with the help of dashboards for further analysis.
• Data may be exposed via web app or mobile app. It can be used for agriculture (crop management, irrigation), smart city (climate monitoring), environmental monitoring, research, infrastructure planning etc.

Advantages of Sigfox weather monitoring system

Following are some of the benefits of Sigfox weather monitoring system.

1. Wireless devices, weatherproof enclosures, solar powered options, can be mounted easily without major civil works.
2. Data can enable optimized irrigation, early disease detection, frost protection, yield improvements etc.
3. Can often cover remote or rural areas where power and infrastructure are sparse.
4. It’s battery life can be very long (months to years), especially with energy harvesting or efficient power management.

Disadvantages of Sigfox weather monitoring system

Following are some of the limitations or challenges of Sigfox weather monitoring system.

1. In densely built areas, under forest canopy, indoors, or in certain terrain, Sigfox signal reception can be poor or inconsistent. Weather station hardware might need an external antenna or special placement.
2. As sensors are exposed to extreme weather conditions, they must be rugged, IP rated, able to survive snow, ice etc.

Key Solutions provider

Conclusion: Sigfox based weather monitoring systems offer a compelling balance: sufficient accuracy, low energy consumption, wide area coverage and reduced infrastructure demands.