Schedule a Teams Meeting with Radiocrafts or leave a message on our contact form to learn more about our Sub-GHz mesh networking solution, RIIM, optimized for efficient Smart Irrigation Networks!

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!

long range

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

hide node count

Large network - Up to 1000 nodes on a single gateway

Two-way communication

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

Battery operation

Very Low Power - Battery Operation

ota

Over-The-Air Updates

advanced security

High reliability with Time-Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH)

Smart Irrigation

Connectivity Requirements For Smart Irrigation Systems

Support Tools For RIIM

Wireless Solutions For Next Generation Smart Irrigation

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 logo (print)

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.

In addition, the RIIM Mesh Router can handle down to 118uA @ 3.3v average power consumption enabling all battery devices in the network to further extend the network coverage.

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 supports the Adaptive Frequency Agility  which allows for high-throughput networking with minimal packet loss by taking the allowed duty cycle in Europe from 1% to around 40%! In the US high-throughput networking is not a big issue but you can still take advantage of the robustness. Using an example, this means that you can now go from 1 packet reaching the Border Router every 4 seconds to 40 packets reaching the Border Router every 4 seconds! This feature is essential to keep up with the vast amounts of data communication required from modern Smart Irrigation deployments.

Time-Synchronization is an essential feature in RIIM for Smart Irrigation as well which supports the management of exact start and stop times for certain events. For example, the user might need to start irrigation of a certain part of the field, immediately after irrigation stops in another part, as maybe irrigating both parts simultaneously can decrease water pressure in the pipes.

faulty node detection is available in RIIM as well, 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:

  1. The chosen electronic components inside are low power to start with.
  2. The network leaf nodes can be put in “Sleepy” mode, reducing the current consumption to a minimum (4.7 uA).
  3. The output power of the module is configurable, not to consume more power than needed during transmit.
  4. 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.
  5. 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:

Read more about the RIIM Network here.

Learn about the different RIIM Parts and Tools here.

Read our extensive documentation on RIIM, including datasheets, User Manuals, Development Kit documentation, Application Notes and more, here.

Download Software Tools for RIIM here.

Watch tutorial videos on how to use the RIIM Development Kit here.

Schedule a Teams Meeting with Radiocrafts or leave a message on our contact form to learn more about our Sub-GHz mesh networking solution, RIIM, optimized for efficient Smart Irrigation Networks!