LoRaWAN Livestock Tracking System — Cow Monitoring with GPS & Health Sensors
A solar-powered LoRaWAN system tracking 500+ cattle across 3,000 acres with real-time GPS, health vitals, geofencing, and a cloud dashboard — reducing livestock loss by 90% for a ranch in Australia.
⚠The Problem
A 3,000-acre cattle ranch in Australia was losing an average of 15–20 animals per year to theft and disorientation in dense bush. Manual headcounts twice a day missed nighttime incidents. With cattle valued at AUD $2,500–$5,000 per head, annual losses exceeded AUD $75,000. The terrain made cellular coverage impossible, and the client needed a system that could run for years on a single charge.
💡Our Solution
We designed a solar-powered LoRaWAN collar tag using an ESP32 with an integrated LoRa module. Each tag transmits GPS coordinates, temperature, and activity data every 5 minutes during the day and every 30 minutes at night to conserve battery. Eight LoRaWAN gateways placed across the ranch (range: 10–15km per gateway in open terrain) feed data to TTN, which routes messages to AWS IoT Core via MQTT. A geofencing engine on Lambda fires SMS + FCM push notifications the moment any animal crosses a defined boundary. The React dashboard shows a live map of all 500+ cattle, health trend charts, and geofence editors.
🔗System Architecture
Collar Tags (ESP32+LoRa) → LoRaWAN Gateways (8x) → The Things Network → MQTT → AWS IoT Core → Lambda → DynamoDB + InfluxDB → React Dashboard + Flutter AppTech Stack
- ESP32 (LoRaWAN module)
- u-blox GPS NEO-M8N
- Temperature sensor (DS18B20)
- Accelerometer (MPU-6050)
- Solar panel + LiFePO4 battery
- Custom waterproof enclosure (IP67)
- LoRaWAN (Class A, SF7–SF12)
- The Things Network (TTN)
- MQTT to AWS IoT Core
- AWS IoT Core
- AWS Lambda (data processing)
- DynamoDB (device state)
- InfluxDB (time-series)
- S3 (geofence polygons)
- React dashboard with Mapbox GL
- Flutter mobile app (iOS + Android)
- Real-time alerts via FCM
Key Features
Results Delivered
- 90% reduction in livestock loss (theft + disorientation)
- 500+ animals tracked simultaneously across 3,000 acres
- 2+ year battery life with solar top-up
- 10–15km LoRaWAN range per gateway — full coverage with 8 nodes
- Geofence alerts within 60 seconds of boundary breach
- ROI achieved in under 8 months vs. annual loss cost
Technologies
Who This Is For
Large-scale ranches, dairy farms, livestock exporters, agricultural cooperatives
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