A world full of internet-connected things can generate an infinite amount of sensed data. How do we turn that data into actionable insights? We will look at the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful ways in which sensor data can create smarter landscapes.

BSI has been instrumental in delivering support for innovation in cities and beyond, including the PAS 180 to PAS 185 suite of Smart City standards – a number of which are being used as the basis for international standards.

Hear how BSI provides Smart City Leadership Programmes to help cities in the UK and internationally to shape outcome-led strategies that address local needs and make cities more investable.

BSI has also created an IoT Community which is connecting buyers and service providers to help shape new opportunities, create best practice, de-risk investments and accelerate adoption. The community is focused on cities and the built environment and it is backed by Innovate UK.

Microcontroller performance continues to improve on a Moore’s Law trajectory. Coupled with specialist processing units, advanced analytical processing tasks can be completed at the edge, enabling large sensor data volumes to be reduced to small meta-data indicators. This hardware combination enables smart sensor devices suitable for the small bandwidth and long range of LoRaWAN.

This session will discuss smart LoRaWAN devices, using readily available microprocessor solutions, to execute signal processing and advanced machine learning techniques to deliver 21^st century sensor solutions for the monitoring of homes, streets and buildings addressing societal and facilities management needs.

Studying wildlife in remote areas of the world, with a goal of implementing informed conservation strategies, required a simple and time-efficient method to build a network covering vast inaccessible areas. As an answer we have developed a bundle of solutions – from animal trackers and static sensors to drone automated signal coverage mapping across water, tree-tops and other inaccessible locations. In this talk we will share the solutions and challenges of our projects – Green Sea Turtles monitoring on Principe Island and Arboreal Monitoring Platform in Amazon rainforest, in Peru among others.

Green sea turtles are an endangered species and most vulnerable during the nesting period when they converge on sandy beaches. Working with the Arribada Initiative and Principe trust we have designed and in past December deployed a camera based tag to capture on video the turtle’s behaviour in space and time. Understanding their swimming, feeding habits and their interaction with the environment is critical to implement informed conservation strategies. See a video from the turtles here and check this post, published on Raspberry Pi blog, for more details on the tagging.

The challenge lies in efficiently and quickly providing a low-cost long-range network coverage in a remote part of the world for real-time monitoring and tracking. A green sea turtle is equipped with a tag when laying eggs on the beach and in about two weeks when it returns with 12-15 h of recorded video (~80 GB) the tag is removed and replaced with a fresh one. This opportunity must not be missed and thus a mechanism is required to know when the turtle comes on the beach. Moreover during the two week period turtles stay in proximity of the beach and surface every few hours to breathe, which is a perfect opportunity to send some data. Furthermore, monitoring the temperature of the sand, water level or tide on the beach and turtle nest temperature all give very valuable insight in how successful the nesting is and how environment affects it.

LoRaWAN is the most suitable solution to address the needs of this project and thus we have developed a solution based on The Things Network infrastructure, answering our infrastructure needs as well as providing an open access for other solutions in the area we may be deploying in the future years and for general use.

We have deployed battery back-up gateways with WiFi connectivity to test out the system requirements in real-world and to figure out the best strategy to roll-out the network. Given that internet access is limited, and building WiFi links to best gateway locations is expensive, we have discovered the best strategy is to deploy off-grid solar powered 3G connected TTN gateways that can be put on trees, float on water or be placed anywhere.

Coverage of gateways on land, remote beach areas as well as over the water on a very versatile coast is difficult to map. Therefore, we have created a drone mapping solution, coupling a DJI Drone with TTN mapper capabilities, with which we can in a matter of minutes determine the coverage of large areas of land and water, fly at canopy level if sensors are going to be deployed there as well as test placement of nodes and gateways automatically. See a video of a drone mapping test, Principe Island TTN gateway deployment and some other very interesting shots of this amazing Island.

Hear how LoRa is solving problems in social isolation with a pilot “push to talk” project running in Liverpool and the future of 5G and how these technologies working together can create an even more connected and smarter future.

This workshop will demonstrate how to build a LoRa node.

What users will need to participate in the workshop

TBC

What level of knowledge / experience is required for the workshop

TBC

In this talk Mark will tell the story of how a small group of people with very little budget built community and local government interest in LoRaWAN, created a digital playground on an agricultural college and surrounding estate in rural North Wales, and won the case for region-wide coverage of The Things Network which is being deployed by the local authority.

You’ll hear about some unusual but valuable rural use cases, and get a sneak preview of the dashboard and alerting system we developed to support the digital playground.

Talk details TBC

This talk is for anyone new to The Things Network (TTN) that may have a sensor node (or want to deploy one) talking to a gateway and want to know the next step, or for entrepreneurs who need to understand what the TTN platform provides and its limitations with regards to storing of data.

This is a live demo using a server that is active and prepped in a Paris-based datacentre (https://scaleway.com). So, more of a show-and-tell with discussion. Note that the code will be put up on github for download after the event and emailed to attendees.

This talk is an overview of data forwarding by The Things Network from node to application, and the use of MQTT broker to then subscribe to this data.

Nic will show how to configure a secure MQTT subscriber to store this data in a Mongo database, using an example written in Node.js.

Nic will show example code as he goes.

The world runs on Arm Core processors. Arm recently made available an Mbed framework to make it simple to build solutions on your desktop.

How simple? – we will run through installation, editing, build and delivery of a working LoRaWAN node in 45minutes!

This workshop is suitable for an intermediate user who is used to running command-line apps and has an understanding of C language development.

Attendees for the workshop should bring a laptop running Windows 10 or Mac High Sierra with Mbed CLI installed using the instructions found here:

https://os.mbed.com/docs/latest/tools/installation-and-setup.html

Alternatively, to work in a linux environment, install mbed-cli using these instructions:

https://os.mbed.com/docs/latest/tools/installing-manually.html

Additional setup & configuration will be covered in the workshop.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicburkinshaw/

TTN tantalisingly offers, for the first time, a platform- and vendor-neutral means to build IoT – from Smart Cities to Smart Homes – without having to negotiate a minefield of middleware and hardware. This session will look at building layers handling the last hop of the IoT stack – building application layers providing intelligence and data processing for sensors, devices and hardware connecting to The Things Network.

Using IBM’s Node-red, this session will look at techniques to rapidly realise prototypes at the software level, and ways to refine this into production-ready systems, from Raspberry Pi devices to scalable cloud-based systems and means to feed output into other publishing and brokerage systems.

What users will need to participate in the workshop

Bring your laptop.

What level of knowledge / experience is required for the workshop

This workshop would benefit from some terminal, JavaScript and Unix experience, but will not be a requisite.

Talk details TBC

Over the past 4 years Flood Network has developed from a hackday project into a sustainable business which provides the equipment and expertise to help you monitor water levels to reduce the risk from flooding. Their systems let you monitor water levels every 15 minutes and take action when levels become problematic.

This talk will cover 8 lessons about LoRaWAN to help your strategy, from network selection to tools and target markets. Wellies not required!

This workshop talks about hands-on low level Embedded engineering. It revolves around the problem of powering and running ultra-low power devices. It teaches you to respect batteries and how to test if they are up for the job. After attending you will have the confidence in designing your own Ultra-low power device. You will learn what to do and what to avoid.

What users will need to participate in the workshop

A bit of time (30-40 minutes) and a listening ear.

What level of knowledge / experience is required for the workshop

Basic Electronics.

Unlike modern stock, older buildings often fall behind as far as the utilisation of new technology is concerned. Many landlords undertake a certain amount of retrofitting such as zonal heating or movement detection systems but these are ad hoc and inchoate, with no ability to monitor how effectively these systems are working either singly or together.

The internet of things and the analysis of data derived from sensors can give landlords, building management and tenants insight into the performance of buildings, enabling adaptations that can be economically and environmentally beneficial, whilst also creating opportunities for behaviour change within those buildings. LoRaWAN and the Things Manchester network coupled with sensors and analytics supplied by Sensorstream were an ideal solution to providing insight and potential costs savings.

Julian will be giving this talk together with Andrew Beattie of Sensorstream.

The internet of things offers many opportunities for the development of applications and services that can provide benefit to business, government and communities alike. The shrinking cost, size and power requirements of many off-the-shelf sensors means deployment of sensor networks is easier than before, but is it possible to have an over-sensored environment?

What are the implications of ad hoc sensor networks, especially if coupled with personal data?

Do you know what data is being collected in your private, work and public life?

This is an open discussion looking at some of the potential issues regarding sensor implementation and what best practice looks like?

The coverage of The Things Network continues to grow impressively. But there likely will always be gaps in coverage between the cities and in remote places on the Earth.

Lacuna Space is flying gateways on satellites to fill in the voids, enabling monitoring in remote locations or tracking of mobile ‘things’, no matter where they are.

We will describe the recent advances in satellite technology that have made this an economically feasible, and also describe the technical challenges to be overcome, for example: establishing links over hundreds of kilometres and Doppler effects.

Target Audience

Beginners in LoRa with basic embedded experience

Objective

The aim of the workshop is to help the audience understand the basics of LoRa PHY. In order to create an efficient MAC protocol or better improve the LoRaWAN, one must first know how the LoRa PHY works.

The workshop will be given over two days.

Pre-requisites:

Please ensure that you install Ac6 and related toolchain software before the workshop. These instructions will guide you through the process:

https://thethingsconference.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/workshop_setup_guide.pdf

Please contact Anup via email if you have any problems setting up the development environment.

Can you also please bring a micro USB cable with you as this will be required to program the board.

Day 1 (Basic):

Part 1: (45 mins)

(1) Basic introduction to LPWAN
(2) Basic introduction to LoRa
(3) Benefits of CSS
(4) Going indepth with LoRa PHY packet structure:

a. Preamble

i. Detection Sequence and why it is important

ii. Sync

iii. Frequency Sync

iv. Time Sync/Silent time

b. PHY header (what is there and why is it useful)

c. Payload

d. CRC (The CRC concept itself is not taught, but its relevance is shown)

(5) What is Channel Activity Detection and how it can be used for efficient channel detection.

The introduction should be enough to start with the hands on.

Part 2: (45 mins)

Working on the Ping-Pong code provided by the ST MCD Application team:

(1) Explaining why I chose Ac6.
(2) Explaining the Ping-Pong code

a. Relating this back to Part 1, with the code to give a sense of what happens when you change something.

i. RX configuration function

ii. TX configuration function

iii. CAD interrupts (both CAD Done and CAD Detected)

iv. The FSM of the code

(3) Letting the candidates run the code on the board, by asking them to change certain parameters and asking what effect will it have.

Day 2 (Advanced):

This day will be devoted to making a basic multi-hop protocol using three nodes and the Ping-Pong code that was studied on the previous day.

Part 3:

(1) Explaining what is meant by multi-hop communication (or Ad Hoc communication). (10 mins)
(2) Explaining what you should keep in mind while designing such a protocol. You will be asked to make a waterfall diagram that you think is required for the multi-hop communication to happen. (20 mins)
(3) We will then use the Ping Pong code skeletal to implement the multi-hop code and implementing on the hardware while seeing output on serial terminal. (60 mins)

Outcome of the workshop:

You will know:
(1) The basics of LoRa PHY, and have a starting point for further research.
(2) Have a development environment setup.
(3) Know how to code and implement on LoRa devices.
(4) Have your first experience designing a rudimentary MAC protocol.

Microclimate.network is an open platform for microclimate, where you can share and monitor air temperature, relative humidity and air pressure. Based on real-time measurements we offer free valuable insights for all users.

The platform features real-time insights such as frost risk, heat island potential and heatwave mitigation.

In order to expand our network we are open to including DIY and 3rd party sensors and also offer cost-effective certified MicroClimate sensors.

Microclimate.network

Hear about my LoRa experience and how I got started from the point of view of a Student & Maker, including incorporating it into a degree project and designing LoRa products for beginners.

By the end of this workshop you will learn how to use our micro:bit node to transmit some basic messages over LoRa & The Things Network with ease. To begin we’ll transmit a hello world message and then adapt our code to transmit data from some of the sensors on the microbit.

This is a great workshop for beginners as it uses the Microsoft Makecode editor in the block based setting.

Attendees will need to bring their own laptop to the session with a browser compatible with Microsoft Makecode installed (Chrome or Firefox work best). We are allowing people to use our Microbits and nodes on the day, however we don’t have enough to let attendees take them home with them.

The industrial internet of things (IIoT) is moving at an ever increasing pace.

Understanding the reality versus the hype associated to LoRaWAN and Cellular LPWA technologies is a major facet prior to building out any product development plan.

This session looks at the key benefits of license free compared to licensed technologies and is intended to help guide your decision making thinking.

Unlike modern stock, older buildings often fall behind as far as the utilisation of new technology is concerned. Many landlords undertake a certain amount of retrofitting such as zonal heating or movement detection systems but these are ad hoc and inchoate, with no ability to monitor how effectively these systems are working either singly or together.

The internet of things and the analysis of data derived from sensors can give landlords, building management and tenants insight into the performance of buildings, enabling adaptations that can be economically and environmentally beneficial, whilst also creating opportunities for behaviour change within those buildings. LoRaWAN and the Things Manchester network coupled with sensors and analytics supplied by Sensorstream were an ideal solution to providing insight and potential costs savings.

Andrew will be giving this talk together with Julian Tait of Open Data Manchester.

IoT (Internet of Things) devices need to report their data or status to base stations at various frequencies.

The current design principals of communication networks, when applied to IoT scenarios, however, do not fit well. For example, an IPv6 address is 128 bits, which is much longer than a 16-bit temperature report. Also, contending to send a small packet is not cost-effective.

In this talk, I will introduce a novel framework, which is slot-based, schedule-oriented, and identity-free for uploading IoT devices’ data. I will show that it fits very well for IoT applications. Also, I will discuss its potential applications in LoRaWAN