Transmitting groundwater data long distances

[datadisaster]

Hey everyone,

 

I have been looking for a fun project and recently got interested in data collection. A company I work for has some groundwater monitoring devices that are located in remote location. We have to drive out to them anytime we want updates on the water. I was wondering if it were possible to make use of pre-existing satellite infrastructure or maybe GSM networks to transmit the groundwater log data back to the office. There is not a huge budget for this so unfortunately I cant buy one off the shelf. I would have to make it myself. I was curious if any of you had some ideas to get me started in the right direction.

[WereCatf]

1 hour ago, datadisaster said:

Hey everyone,

 

I have been looking for a fun project and recently got interested in data collection. A company I work for has some groundwater monitoring devices that are located in remote location. We have to drive out to them anytime we want updates on the water. I was wondering if it were possible to make use of pre-existing satellite infrastructure or maybe GSM networks to transmit the groundwater log data back to the office. There is not a huge budget for this so unfortunately I cant buy one off the shelf. I would have to make it myself. I was curious if any of you had some ideas to get me started in the right direction.

Depends on how much data there is and what ways there are for getting the data out of those sensors, like e.g. if the sensors allow for reading the data off of a UART-port, it'd be extremely easy to slap a basic microcontroller on there that then transmits the data via a GSM-connection. Cheap, too, though you'd need a GSM-connection for every sensor. If the distance between the sensors was less than 10km, you could use something like e.g. LoRa to send the data out from the sensors, then whip up a LoRa-receiver somewhere around the middle of all those sensors, which then transmits the aggregate data forward using mobile-data.

 

You didn't give much information on the sensors or their locations/distances, so it's hard to come up with any more specific plans, so there may be plenty even better solutions to it, as well. As for the devices needed for the above plan, like I mentioned, it depends on the way one can get the data out of those sensors, but a $3 STM32-based microcontroller, a LoRa-breakout board, a power-supply and possibly a battery for it could be all you need for each sensors, costing a total of something like $30. Then the LoRa-receiver would cost a similar amount of money, plus whatever is needed for the mobile-connection.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention that this project would be a better fit under hobby-electronics than networking.

[WereCatf]

Oh, if you do decide to go with LoRa, please follow the regulations instead of being an asshole and flooding the frequencies.