mOOvement EARTAG: SODAQ’s solar-powered cattle tracker
"SODAQ has always been professional and honest. They have paid attention to all our needs and it has been great to work with them. mOOvement has already been working with Sodaq for five years and is planning to work with SODAQ for many more years"
Challenge
To develop an affordable solar-powered IoT cattle tracker to prevent farmers from losing their assets and obtain actionable insights.
Outcome
Solar-powered GPS eartags for cattle, capable of giving granular data on the location and movements of livestock across a wide area.
Impact
Farmers track their cattle with a high level of precision while receiving push notifications if cattle stray from the herd or display abnormal movement patterns. SODAQ’s cattle tracking solution facilitates livestock monitoring and adds extra precautions to prevent cattle straying from the herd.
How does the EARTAG work?
Thanks to LoRa, a low-power wide-area network technology, mOOvement EARTAGs can transfer data over huge distances—approximately 8 kilometers of straight-line distance. This has revolutionized remote cattle farming. For connectivity, Wifx’s Lorix ONE outdoor gateway is being used. The Things Industries’ robust and low latency solution is being used for the backhaul. mOOvement developed an exceptional app in order to track location and grazing patterns, as well as send push notifications if cattle wander into unusual locations—or exhibit odd behaviors.
The engineering process
The ear tag needed to be small: all the technology had to fit into a tiny form factor, and be light enough for cows to wear the tag comfortably. The cow tracker also needed to be able to power itself and charge its battery via very small solar panels. Moreover, the device had to be capable of withstanding incredibly harsh outdoor conditions, ranging from (sub)tropical rural areas, to the Australian outback. Finally, the GPS and sensor data needed to be transmitted over long distances, requiring flawless antenna performance. Ultimately, the mOOvement ear tag proved itself to be the type of technical challenge our engineering team loved working on!
The collaboration
Over time, the collaboration between mOOvement and SODAQ has transformed into a close business partnership, in which SODAQ is positioned as the engineering service provider to mOOvement. mOOvement is in charge of the production of the EARTAG, developing and running cloud services and phone apps as well as the commercialization of the IoT cattle tracker.
