El Real-time monitoring of cattle: integration of LoRa, sensors, and data visualization
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33936/isrtic.v9i2.7975Keywords:
Internet of Things, LoRa, Animal monitoring, Livestock farmingAbstract
Livestock production in rural areas faces major challenges in monitoring animal health and location due to technological and connectivity limitations. To address this problem, a real-time monitoring system based on LoRa communication was developed, designed to record and visualize cattle body temperature and geolocation. The research followed a quantitative, applied, and non-experimental design, validated through interviews and observations with farmers in the province of Santa Elena, Ecuador, to ensure representativeness of the production context. The implemented system integrated an Arduino Nano with infrared temperature sensors, a GPS module, and LoRa transmitters, together with an ESP8266-based gateway, a MySQL database, and a graphical Python interface. Field tests with five monitored cattle demonstrated stable data transmission up to 3 km, confirming LoRa’s suitability for rural environments. Statistical analysis of temperature data showed an average of 38.4 °C with minimal variability, while geolocation records confirmed accurate positioning within the established boundaries, with no outliers detected. In addition, the alert mechanism using the Blynk platform enabled timely detection of health anomalies and out-of-zone events. The findings align with the trends reported by Navia et al. (2024), reinforcing the global adoption of long-range, low-cost monitoring systems. However, unlike more complex approaches, this study shows that a simplified solution focusing on temperature and geolocation can provide significant value under the technological and economic constraints of rural Ecuador. Future work will focus on incorporating additional physiological parameters, renewable energy sources, and advanced analytics to enhance scalability and sustainability
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Copyright (c) 2025 Walter Orozco Iguasnia, Juleidy Jailin Tigrero Muñoz, Santiago Andrés Orozco Villarroel
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