A Visitor Assistance System Based on LoRa for Nature Forest Parks

• Main Authors: Ana Elisa Ferreira, Fernando Molano Ortiz, Thales Teixeira de Almeida, Luís Henrique M. K. Costa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-04-01
• Series: Electronics
• Subjects: ecotourism safety; forest radio propagation; monitoring system; cooperative positioning
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/9/4/696

Ecotourism activities are attracting more people each day, including national forest parks. Unfortunately, the number of incidents involving visitors to natural parks grows at the same pace. Among the most prevalent risks inside forests are getting lost and the occurrence of natural disasters. In this work, we propose a system for monitoring and assisting visitors of forest parks, based on a low power wide range wireless network, LoRa. The proposed visitor assisting system is composed of mobile terminals that communicate between them and with fixed infrastructure, using a protocol designed for exchanging visitor locations data. The infrastructure consists of wireless gateways distributed on the trails, the totems. User terminals, the mobile nodes, work collaboratively through a Delay and Disruption Tolerant Network (DTN), to cope with the possibility that the gateway infrastructure does not cover the whole trail. In addition to improvements and gains for minimizing risks, the proposal also brings contributions to the preservation of the environment, raising awareness of the influence of human presence in the natural environment and to the development of environmental education actions.