Ground Segment

Consists of the network of sensors distributed over an area that needs to be monitored. The nodes can measure environmental, physical, chemical data, or detect deformations caused by mechanical or thermal stress. The measured data are then transmitted via radio to the gateway on board the drone.

Ground Segment Nodes

Ground segment nodes, that are battery equipped, consist of a sensor unit and a radio transceiver. While flying over the monitored area, the drone polls nodes using a radio signal and receives a reply from a sensor node within several seconds. The transmission protocol allows for the reception of data from dozens of sensors in just a couple of seconds.IDESIO deploys different standard radio technologies (Zigbee, WiFI or LoRa) that operate in unlicensed frequency bands.

Dynamic Frequency Adaptation algorithms allow for full operability even when other radio systems in vicinity. IDESIO uses radio modules that can be adapted to sensors of any type: extensometers, piezoelectrics, temperature and humidity sensors, chemical or meteorological sensors, etc. The choice of radio technology depends on the specific application.

IDESIO offers the design and development of the entire ground segment unit when necessary. Alternatevely, we adapt our radio modules to commercially already available sensors.

In cases where a ground unit is already deployed by the client, IDESIO adapts radio protocols of the gateway on board of the drone to this specific use case.

Zigbee, WiFi, LoRa allow for the transmission of measured data to the distances from 100m to 10 Km, rendering data collection rapid and simple during the drone flight.

Energy consumption of ground segment nodes is minimised thanks to the deployment of Low Power Listening techniques that allow extending the battery lifetime to up to several years. IDESIO’s solutions aim at the ground segment node hardware cost minimisation.

Multiradio transmission

WiFi

WiFi technology (based on IEEE 802.11g) standard allows data transmission at 54 Mbit / s over distances up to about 100 m on the ISM (license-free) band at 2.4 GHz. It is a very successful radio standard used in many application contexts resulting in lower realization cost and maximum reliability. Optimal for civil structure monitoring and when the large amounts of data need to be transmitted.

LoRa

Lora technology allows the transmission of data at a few tens of kbit / s up to distances of about 10 km using ISM (license-free) band at 868 MHz. It ‘a recently introduced proprietary radio system used in the field of Smart City applications, with low realization cost and high reliability. Optimal for all applications in which the area to be monitored is very vast.

Zigbee

The ZigBee (based on IEEE 802.15.4) standard technology allows data transmission at 250 kbit / s up to a distance of about 100 m using the ISM (license-free) band at 2.4 GHz. It ‘a very successful radio standard used in many application contexts with very low realization cost and high reliability. Optimal for applications such as precision agriculture.