Topics:
LoRaWAN, Low Power
Themes:
Energy Efficient Embedded Systems
Deployment of a Low-Power LoRa Sensor Network for Environmental Monitoring in Antarctica
Nikolay Milovanov
Environmental monitoring in Antarctica is constrained by extreme weather, long periods without sunlight, and limited access to reliable energy during the polar winter. These constraints become even more severe for seasonally unoccupied research bases, where most building infrastructure is intentionally powered down for safety reasons. This paper presents the deployment of a low-power monitoring system based on LoRa technology near the Bulgarian Antarctic Base St. Kliment Ohridski on Livingston Island. The system combines ThingsLog LPMDL-1105 data loggers, a battery-powered LoRa gateway, and a Starlink backhaul link, all of which are jointly activated only during a short daily communication window to minimize energy consumption. Sensor nodes acquire measurements from four sensors every 15 minutes, buffer 24 hours of readings locally, and transmit the accumulated dataset as a single uplink payload per port during the scheduled communication window using the ThingsLog Open LoRa Protocol. To preserve sufficient payload capacity for this transmission mode, the radio configuration was fixed at SF8, and Adaptive Data Rate (ADR) was disabled. Beyond environmental sensing, the deployment enables a practical comparison between outdoor conditions and the internal microclimate of selected base buildings, providing remote situational awareness relevant to maintenance planning and post-event damage assessment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first published Antarctic LPWAN deployment study to combine indoor-outdoor monitoring of base infrastructure with a duty-cycled LoRa gateway and duty-cycled satellite backhaul designed for autonomous winter operation.
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