LoRaWan keeps lonely vigil on Etna

A LoRaWan network has been installed on Mount Etna in Sicily to allow scientists to monitor radon gas from their base in Clermont-Ferrand, 1,200km away.

“For many years, scientists have measured radon in the soil of the 3,300m-high Etna, which required on-site visits,” according to Kerlink, whose radio equipment has been deployed. “A new system of autonomous radon sensors, designed and deployed by French scientists in Clermont-Ferrand and supported by the LoRaWAN network, [now] remotely and continuously measures radon in plumes of volcanic gas. The system also allows measuring radon emissions near the top of the volcano, an area that was out of reach for soil samples in the winter.”

A Kerlink Wirnet gateway has been used on Etna to collect data from LoRaWan nodes with radon and meteorological sensors. The gateway then transmits the information over embedded 3G back-haul to a LoRa server at the French National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics in Clermont-Ferrand.

“The radon sensors that send their data in near-real time, year-round to give volcanologists an unprecedented picture of what is happening at Etna,” said Laurent Royer of the Laboratoire de Physique de Clermont.

A bit more on radon and Etna