Smart Irrigation - Radiocrafts

Do you need a cost-effective subscription free connectivity for your Smart Irrigation system capable of covering an area of approximately 80×80 km on a single gateway with up to 1000 nodes? Then Radiocrafts’ ultra reliable Industrial IP Mesh (RIIM) is the solution for you!

Cover a large area - 80 x 80 km, up to 1400 meters between each node

Large network - Up to 1000 nodes on a single gateway

2-way communication for sensors and control (e.g. valve control).

Very Low Power - Battery Operation

Over-The-Air Updates

High reliability with Time-Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH)

Connectivity requirements for Smart Irrigation systems

Smart Irrigation systems have number of unique properties that make subscription free sub-GHz Radiocrafts Industrial IP Mesh (RIIM) very well suited:

Need for connectivity without mobile network coverage, data plans or operator lock-in
Ultra reliable communication and operation
Long battery life for sensors spread out over a large area
Not only collection of sensor data, but also control of devices such as water valves
Reliable in-field Over-The-Air update of connected devices
Global coverage to target new and emerging markets

RIIM by Radiocrafts is an Industrial IoT wireless IP mesh network completely embedded in a module. It includes all the critical components for a complete wireless IP mesh and has no license free or subscription costs. It is ready to go when you buy the module. Additionally, since RIIM is a mesh network, it is self-forming, self-healing and self-optimizing. This is simplifies the installation and implementation of your smart irrigation system greatly.

RIIM can cover a huge area of around 80×80 km squared in a semi open rural environment. It also supports up to 1400 m for each mesh hop (28 mesh hops maximum), and up to 1000 nodes for a single border router (gateway), reducing the cost of the installation as less gateways are needed to support a large scale deployment. To cover a larger area you simply add another border router.

RIIM includes the ICI framework. An ICI application is always running on the module to tailor the modules behavior to the customers unique requirements. In its simplest form, the ICI application is just configuring the radio network, the modules hardware interfaces, and defines when to read and write to those interfaces. ICI makes it possible for the user to directly interface to virtually any sensor and/or actuator, such as a soil moisture sensors, water valve control, UV sensors, rain/freeze sensors, wind sensors, and more, removing the need for external circuitry. It supports mist computing to reduce bandwidth requirements and for fast responses to local events.

RIIM also supports faulty node detection where the Border Router sends a message to every node asking if they are still connected to the network. If the Border Router does not receive a reply from one of the nodes, this means that this node is lost.

A RIIM network supports 2-way symmetrical communication which is essential for valve control. This is an important point as many other IoT connectivity solutions have been designed with one-way sensor data communication in mind. Smart irrigation systems do not only need to collect sensor readings, they typically also need to control devices such as valves. Valve control is and example of down-link communication, something many popular LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Networking) technologies struggle to support in a scalable manner. RIIM, on the other hand, was designed from the beginning to support this in a scalable manner. Because RIIM handles down-link communication as good as up-link communication, we say that it is a fully symmetric solution.

Another benefit of a fully symmetric communication is that it can support Over-The-Air Updates. This means that the user can update the user defined ICI firmware when the network is deployed and in full operation, so new sensors/controllers can be added when the need arises. With Smart Irrigation Systems, often times, many locations are hard to reach and will be in operation for a long time, so touch less updates of firmware is important.

RIIM is an exceptionally reliable solution that supports Time Synchronized Channel Hopping (TSCH) which was designed to make a mesh with less packet collision and higher reliability. A TSCH network has proven to have a reliability of up to 99.99%. RIIM is also protected by encryption using a pre-shared key and supports DTLS end to end security.

RIIM is very low power for battery operation supporting long lasting projects. It supports a number of features that reduce power consumption, including:

The chosen electronic components inside are low power to start with.
The network leaf nodes can be put in “Sleepy” mode, reducing the current consumption to a minimum (4.7 uA).
The output power of the module is configurable, not to consume more power than needed during transmit.
The TSCH, Time Synchronized Channel hopping, allows for the Mesh routers to go to sleep when there is no time slot for incoming or outgoing RF data packages.
The data processing that can be done by the customer in ICI can save substantial power. RIIM™ supports cloud computing which means that instead of sending all raw sensor reading data to the Cloud, the user can just send the interesting data, such as an alarm when a threshold is met.

A RIIM node can last 10 years on a CR2772 (870 mAh capacity coin cell battery) while sending 12 bytes every hour, 24 hours per day.

Support Tools For RIIM

We recommend that you buy a RIIM Development Kit in your early stage product evaluation. The development kits are designed to be easy to use and to very quickly support a wireless link or network, where you can make a good analysis of the network performance.

You can buy the RIIM Development kit from:

Digi-Key
Or from a distribution partner in your country.