A Sensor Network Using SigFox for Temperature and Humidity Monitoring in the Livestock Industry

During the summer, heat stress in cattle produces economic losses in Uruguay and other regions; animals show decreases in meat or milk production, and suffer physiological and metabolic changes that, in extreme cases, can cause the death of the animal. In most cases, all these effects can be attenuated with an adequate monitoring of the animals' environment, in both the shade shelters for livestock and in the stockyards. The monitoring system allows, on one hand, to trigger alarms in extreme cases, but especially to generate real data of the temperature and humidity, which can lead to better designs of the shade protections and an adequate cattle management. However, practical temperature and humidity monitoring in the livestock industry requires reliable, rugged, low-maintenance sensors that allow monitoring at a few points close to each other, transmitting the information several kilometers away, powered by a battery that lasts several years. To meet these specifications and avoid deploying an own network, this work presents the development of a wireless sensor using the Sigfox IoT network, based on the Sigfox-ready HT32SX SiP. The developed prototype is presented, as well as preliminary measurements, and a power consumption comparison with other LPWAN technologies aimed at IoT in the agribusiness.