A New Remote Monitor and Control System Based on Sigfox IoT Network

Abstract: We describe a new, low-cost system designed to provide multi-sensor remote condition monitoring of modern scientific laboratories, as well as to allow users to perform actions from remote locations in case of detection of specified events. The system is battery operated and does not require the presence of a Local Area Network (LAN) or WiFi (which are typically not available in case of, e.g. power losses), as it exploits the growing infrastructure of Internet of Things (IoT) Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN). In particular our system exploits the new SigFox ultra-narrow-bandwidth (UNB) infrastructure, and provides for a bidirectional link between the instrumentation and the remote user even in case of power line outages, which are among the most critical situations that a scientific laboratory can withstand. The system can detect the occurrence of predefined events in very short times, and either autonomously react with a series of predefined actions, also allowing a remote user to timely perform additional actions on the system through an user-friendly smartphone application or via a browser interface. The system also embeds a novel power-loss detection architecture, which detects power line failures in less than 2 ms. We provide a full characterization of the prototype, including reaction times, connection latencies, sensors sensitivity, and power consumption.