Low cost rural 4G private network with large coverage for transmission of video streaming and photos in real time - 4G AgroNet

• Grant number: 22/13745-3
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Duration: April 01, 2023 - June 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Electrical Engineering - Telecommunications
• Convênio/Acordo: SEBRAE-SP
• Principal Investigator: José Sindi Yamamoto
• Grantee: José Sindi Yamamoto
• Host Company: Innovatech Telecom Indústria e Comércio de Equipamentos Eletrônicos e de Telecomunicações Ltda (Innovatech)
• CNAE: Telecomunicações sem fio ; Outras atividades de telecomunicações ; Consultoria em tecnologia da informação
• City: Campinas
• Pesquisadores principais: Eduardo Luís Carrara
• Associated researchers: Felipe de David Bortolotto

Abstract

On the farms in Brazil, the Internet is usually provided via a satellite or microwave radio link. At the end of the link, at the farm's headquarters, a WiFi router is connected. Thus, there is only a small WiFi coverage at the farm's headquarters and there is no Internet in the farm's field. One of the places in the field where, usually, there is no Internet is the cattle handling facility. The cattle handling facility consists of a fenced area, where the cattle wait until they are sent to carry out certain procedures, such as cutting, marking, dehorning, among others. The cattle handling facilities are far from the headquarters or from where the farm's computers are located and there is no Internet coverage, as already mentioned. The problem to be solved by the present project is to monitor a cattle handling facility, far at least 5 km from the headquarter, through video streaming or photos in real time, speeding up the handling processes by allowing the connection of laptops from the cattle handling facility to the farm's data center, as well as using mobile applications and communicating by voice with the farm's headquarter. Once the problem described with a cattle handling facility has been resolved, similar problems of real-time monitoring and speeding up of processes will be resolved in other parts of the field and away from the farm's headquarters. Low-cost technologies such as Wi-Fi and small cellular radio base stations (RBS), known as femtocells, do not achieve the desired coverage. On the other hand, RBS with large coverage (macro-RBS) requires very high CAPEX/OPEX. A solution with an intermediate coverage and cost between femtocell and macro-RBS, known as micro-RBS, could be used. But the installation and operation of a conventional micro-RBS depends on a mobile operator and cannot be installed by the farm itself for its own use, due to issues of integration with the mobile operator's 4G core network (EPC: Evolved Packet Core) and frequency bands granted on a primary basis to the mobile operator. In this scenario, Innovatech Telecom has developed an innovative low-cost 4G solution with the potential to solve the described problem of coverage, installation, and private use. The solution, called uRede-LTE, consists of a 4G femtocell (eNodeB) integrated with its own EPC embedded in a mini-PC. This feature allows the uRede-LTE to work without EPC integration from a mobile operator. Furthermore, if the uRede-LTE operates at low frequencies that do not belong to a mobile operator, it has the potential to provide the bitrate and coverage needed for the particular use described for the cattle handling facility. For this purpose, the uRede-LTE shall be adapted in order to operate at low frequency bands such as SLP ("Serviço Limitado Privado") at 250 MHz and 410 MHz (the latter still being analyzed by Anatel) and unlicensed frequency bands at 900 MHz, resulting in a new low-cost technological solution for rural areas, called 4G-AgroNet. Thus, 4G-AgroNet consists of a small, low-cost, plug and play hardware which can be installed and operated by the farm itself for your private use, as a Wi-Fi router but with wide-coverage, or by a company that is not a mobile operator. The 4G-Agronet will be installed at the farm's headquarters, where the computers (data center) are located, forming a local network. The local network connects to the Internet through a "backhaul" already in use on the farm (microwave radio, satellite, etc.). In the present project, for the operation of 4G-AgroNet in the mentioned frequency bands, power amplifiers modules and antennas for these frequency bands will be acquired. See attached 4G-AgroNet presentation.(*) uRede-LTE is being homologated by Anatel. (AU)