Thirsty cows pose an interesting challenge for low power design

Measuring the quality of cows’ drinking water in real time seems like a piece of cake on paper thanks to internet of things technology. But during the product development of the so-called H2O alert module by Neways Technologies, the necessary challenges came into play.

By: Dimitri Reijerman

Pascal van Kesteren of Neways Technologies was approached by the company Bekosense two years ago. They wanted to market a device that, using a temperature sensor and a sensor that measures the conductivity of drinking water, could inform the farmer whether or not the drinking water stored in the water tanks is clean. With the sensor, the farmer receives a signal on his mobile phone when the water needs to be replaced or replenished.

Applying such sensors is useful for farmers, because cows drink less if the water is contaminated by, for example, feces or urine. This in turn affects the quantity and quality of the milk supplied. At the WoTS he will discuss in detail the challenges of low power design in practice.

Low power design

Van Kesteren set to work to build a suitable sensor based on the Bekosense concept. “We opted for a lora solution in a private network. The farmer is responsible for the correct functioning of the sensors and the gateway that sends the data.” That was where the first challenge came in, because according to the chosen business model, the farmer had to be able to replace the batteries of the H2O sensors himself. Ultimately, the design was powered by regular penlite batteries. This did mean that the battery life of an H2O module dropped from the initially desired 4 years to 1 year.

But more challenges emerged during product development. Van Kesteren: “The environmental variables were cows in a barn environment. The self-alignment of the sensor was one of the problems. The sensor floats in water, cows bump into it, causing the antenna to end up in the water.” That is why Neways made a design that automatically made the antenna surface again by weighing down the module at the bottom.

During field tests, prototypes also had to deal with bored cows. “They would knock the sensors out of the troughs and play football with them. And so it turned out, I knew nothing about cows,” Van Kesteren says with a smile. Eventually, the sensors were attached to the water troughs to prevent the cows from running off with them.

Educational IoT project

Van Kesteren thinks that the H2O alert modules after the (much)needed practical tests are finally ready for a global market introduction. And he has learned a lot from this IoT project: “The farmer is responsible for the sensor and is a party in the story that I have no control over. Normally, the person who places the sensor is also responsible for the service. This separation brings with it the necessary challenges.”

The Neways manager hopes that his story will point out to colleagues during his WoTs presentation the unexpected environmental variables that can crop up: “As technicians, you are busy with the technology of the story, it has to meet the specs, but we often forget what happens around it. Many IoT concepts from start-ups are just a game, but the moment it becomes a business concept, much more comes into play. You can't avoid that,” concludes a wiser Van Kesteren.

The lecture by Pascal van Kesteren is part of the seminar program Low Power Design. You can visit the lecture on Tuesday 2 October at 12:00 in the Marijke Hall. Registration for the lecture is free and can be done here.