The wireless network for the digital municipality
Applications for the Smart City are being tested in Herrenberg. This requires a radio network that is stable and powerful. This is why LoRaWAN is being used in Herrenberg. The technology offers a number of advantages.
The people of Herrenberg already appreciate the benefits of digital applications: Selected garbage cans automatically report their fill level and are emptied before they overflow. The real-time display minimizes the search for a free parking space. For such applications to work, data must be transmitted. LoRaWAN is used for this in Herrenberg. The abbreviation stands for Long Range Wide Area Network. In short, LoRaWAN can transmit small data packets over long distances. To do this, sensors measure certain parameters, such as the fill level of a garbage can. The data is transmitted to a network node via LoRaWAN and from there to a data portal.
"LoRaWAN is an open radio standard that guarantees optimum network coverage and interference-resistant signal transmission with little effort and low energy consumption," explains Martin Wuttke, First State Official and Head of the Department of Construction and Environment. For Wuttke, LoRaWAN has decisive advantages: First of all, there are no license fees. In addition, due to the low transmission frequency, the radiation intensity is low and the signals also penetrate thick building walls.
Source: Basic paper: Smart Herrenberg, 2018
Making everyday things more functional
The district of Böblingen wants to be the first district in Germany to use LoRaWAN across the board for digital administration and its population. "The functionality of everyday objects can be increased and the processes associated with them can be simplified through digital networking," explains District Administrator Roland Bernhard.
In Herrenberg, sensors are used to transmit the fill levels of waste garbage cans via LoRaWAN
The "Open Region" project aims to make the network available to all citizens. To this end, 52 network nodes, known as gateways, are being installed throughout the district. Sensors select the nearest gateway, which transmits the encrypted data. No personal information is collected or transmitted. At the same time, the Herman Hollerith Center, the towns of Herrenberg and Holzgerlingen and The Things Network Region Stuttgart are working hard on applications for digital administration.
407 LoRaWAN sensors are already in use in Herrenberg. Based on the information obtained about temperature and humidity, the road maintenance department, for example, decides when winter road clearance is necessary. The municipal gardening department can water plants and trees in good time. These are just two of countless LoRaWAN applications. District Administrator Bernhard is therefore calling on everyone in the district to use the open network and contribute ideas.
