Data Acquisition System Development for a Hydraulic Plant using Hybrid Communication Network based on LoRa

This paper presents the development of a data acquisition system that uses a hybrid communication network based on Long Range (LoRa) modules. The goal of the system is to provide the gathered information over long distances. The proposed hybrid structure minimizes the costs involved with the usage of LoRa transmitters, deploying a wired network to interconnect the sensors and actuators in the vicinity of the transmission point. This structure is compatible with the main existing industrial communication protocols, facilitating the connection with the already installed networks. The system was conceived for a hydraulic plant, aiming its instrumentation as a form of optimization of water distribution systems monitoring. In this paper the performance of LoRa module is analysed in terms of the maximum distance achieved to forward the data gathered with acceptable quality. The acquired results demonstrated the viability of the proposed solution for remote and local monitoring of water distribution systems.