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CC1310: Behavior of CC1310/CC1312R on rural forest / dense vegetation environment

Andres Oliva Trevisan
Prodigy 90 points
Part Number: CC1310
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: CC1312R, , CC1350

Dear all:

I am currently in the early stages of the developing of an animal / wild life tracking system oriented to tortoises but with the possibility to track other smaller animals in the future (like tiny Lizards) in the future

I find Texas CC1310/CC1312R as a very interesting option due to the development tools kit (and mostly the 15.4 stack), budget link, low power, size, and possible mesh network implementation.

System will be tracking at the same time gps, and handling some sensors with a 5 samples-per -second rate. The idea is to transmit a 64 bytes message every 15 minutes to give position and other values (the rest will be saved in an external memory)

I would like to know if someone here has any experience with this system in a forest environment with heavy vegetation, and how the link budget is affected there.

The main reason for this is because I am in a struggle of choosing this SoC or an LoRA based one. I have a lot of information of how LoRA works in forests, but almost none regarding Texas SoC. So i am opening this thread to gather more information or thoughts in order to make the proper choice.

Best regards

Andres

  • 0
    Guru 735685 points

    Don't read any related information about using TI 15.4 stack under such environment but you can try to use TI RF-RANGE-ESTIMATOR to do some estimation. By the way, TI 15.4 stack doesn't support mesh capability for now and you can use Wi-SUN, which support mesh capability, as alternative

  • 0 in reply to YiKai Chen
    Prodigy 90 points

    Thank you Chen!, I checked the range estimator and yes, CC1312R seems to be the best option. I will also check some information regarding WiSUN and if it fits our requirements

  • 0
    TI__Mastermind 33640 points

    Hi,

    TIs SoCs or LoRa will have similar RF attenuation providing they are operating at the same frequency. However, we have customers that have similar applications and it will be more beneficial if you can reduce the frequency as much as possible in order to achieve a greater range in the forest. i.e. recommend to use 169 MHz instead of  868/915 MHz especially if you can utilize a large antenna. 315 & 433 MHz are not so interesting frequency bands for this type of application since they are relatively low power.

    Worst case scenario is a a "Soil/Sand Dry" ground condition (cell D15) and a Rainy Environment. A rainy environment will reduce the range by a further 5-10%. 

    Regards,

       Richard

  • 0 in reply to RGW
    Prodigy 90 points

    Hello Richard, thank you for your complete answer.

    I will like to know the following:

    -Is the 433 MHz CC1310/CC1312r developer kit useful for the 169 MHz frequency (besides the fact to get a proper antenna), or i will need to create my own board to do the first developing steps?

    -We are going to power the nodes with 3V-225mAh  (batteries) or 1.55 - 38mAh ones with an step up converter. I am worried by the fact that nodes with this low power source act as a mesh router and drains out the battery. What is your opinion regarding this?, is feasible or we will need to put some other nodes with bigger battery in strategic points that will NOT be attached to animals (which is not the idea of the mesh network we are having in mind). I ask you this because I was not able to find information regarding this. The only thing I am assuming is that in order to make a node work as a router of a mesh network, it should be all the time in listening mode, which will drain this kind of battery really fast.

    Thank you a lot for your advice regarding the frequency band!, since there is a zone without

    Best regards

    Andres

     

  • 0 in reply to Andres Oliva Trevisan
    Guru 735685 points

    1. As I know, CC1310/CC1312r developer kit is not optimized for 169 MHz frequency.

    2. Since router mode would be RX always on device, 3V-225mAh or 1.55 - 38mAh battery won't be last long enough in your application.

  • 0 in reply to YiKai Chen
    Prodigy 90 points

    Thank you a lot Chen, I would like to know the following regarding your answers:

    1 Its possible to add a coil (or way to adapt it) to the antenna to adapt the frequency of the RF Antenna filter like is suggested to do in CC1350 launchpad manual? I would like to know this in advance because we will start developing with the launchpad board and will be very useful to make tests in 165 MHz band as suggested.

    2 Which kind of battery (in mAh amounts) should be recommend to run a node as router for the mesh network (or the only way should be to connect it to AC? ). We are thinking of a 25 nodes per router, around 250 meter radius which each transmitting 0.2% of the time (so the ideal total amount of throughput will be 5% of the time )

    Thank you very much to you all!, this answers are helping a lot :)