Flood monitoring: a LoRa based case-study in the city of L’Aquila

Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies are particularly suited for environmental monitoring applications due to their potential to achieve small and inexpensive Internet of Things (IoT) systems. In this paper, a LoRa based Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) environmental and flood-oriented monitoring system is presented, covering the sensor node design, realization and real world scenario test results. The system is composed of a microcontroller based sensory device, oriented to raw analog data sampling and manipulation, through a LoRa radio interface used to communicate with a LoRaWAN network structure, followed by a remote web section for information analysis and flooding alarm. Waterproof temperature sensors are employed onboard to enhance the environmental monitoring capability. A MEMS accelerometer device allows alert activation in case of structural activity or vandalism. A power management analysis of the WSN node is provided, so to overcome this critical aspect, in LPWAN implementations. The system is oriented to a modular perspective to achieve different sensor interfacing functionalities.