System of Remote Weight Monitoring for Beekeeping

Abstract

Existing remote weight monitoring systems in beekeeping have disadvantages: lack of scaling of the system within the apiary, limited use in conditions of poor mobile communication. The use of LoRa energy-efficient long-distance radio communication technologies is proposed. The architecture of the developed remote weight monitoring system for beekeeping has a "star" structure and consists of two types of devices: a master station, an end device with two-way data exchange. The master station - provides communication between the end devices of the system and the user through the mobile network. The end device - provides collection of data on the weight of the hive, ambient air temperature, data processing, data transmission to the master station. The parameters of the LoRa radio communication network are selected: propagation coefficient, coding speed, bandwidth frequencies of the communication channel. The time required for the transfer of one data packet between the end device and the master station is calculated. The results of the study of methods of filtering continuous noise and impulse noise of strain gauge weight sensor data using the Python programming language are presented: moving average filter, median filter, exponential average filter, Kalman filter. According to the results of the research of digital filtering methods, the final device of the remote weight monitoring system for beekeeping uses an exponential average filter with effective filtering of continuous noise and impulse noise. The schematic diagrams of the master station and the final device are presented. The hardware part of the master station consists of three functional blocks: The main functional block is a microcontroller; the communication unit consists of a mobile network modem and a LoRa radio communication modem; the functional power supply is represented by a lithium-ion battery and a solar panel. The final device is built using a microcontroller, an external analog-to-digital converter, a high-precision strain-gauge weight sensor, and a LoRa radio modem. The final device is powered by a lithium-ion battery and a solar panel. The devices of the remote weight monitoring system for beekeeping are built according to the modular and hierarchical principle.