Flexible Data Acquisition with LoRaWAN and MQTT for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

Small and medium-sized enterprises require a flexible solution for data acquisition and visualization. Measurements are e.g. production parameters, states of machines, the position of a device or product, sensor values such as temperature or humidity, occupancy of a workstation. In this paper, we provide a portable small-scale solution for distributed data acquisition, data aggregation, transmission, and visualization. The system employs a message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT) broker that enables cross-system transmission of data with the publish/-subscribe pattern. Data is saved in databases and visualized in dashboard platforms. For the deployment of external sensors, we suggest a long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN) as a cost-effective wireless infrastructure for battery-powered wireless sensors. We implement a complete small-scale, portable solution sufficient for home office applications and small offices. The components such as the MQTT broker and the dashboard form the base for a complete solution and provide a framework for further process optimization. Furthermore, we provide a performance evaluation of the proposed system for the MQTT-based data transfer. Additionally to numerous LoRaWAN sensors, the system is able to handle approx. 5000 MQTT messages per second with a payload smaller than 1000 Bytes.