RuraLTHINGS: A Novel IoT Monitoring System for Remote and Rural Regions

In rural and remote areas, characterized by limited or inadequate communication infrastructures and difficulty in monitoring residents, often senior citizens, face challenges of information exclusion. For this reason, there is a necessity to develop ubiquitous systems capable of real-time data collection, aiming not only to enhance the understanding of the quality of life of the residents but also to provide timely alerts regarding potential hazards such as fires or the detection of dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and radon gas. This paper presents, RuraLTHINGS, a novel IoT autonomous monitoring system for remote and rural regions, focused on the surveillance of the quality of living and quality of air. The proposal focuses on key parameters, such as temperature, humidity, carbon monoxide/dioxide, and radon gas. Radon is a serious health hazard, and the prolonged risk of exposure is associated with lung cancer and childhood leukemia. The proposed system presents an interoperable IoT sensor network, connected securely and transparently, that enables monitoring of the parameters, empowering the residents and the municipalities to improve their quality of life. The system is prepared to be deployed in a network constraint scenario, and it includes access to multiple communication protocols. This paper presents the system implementation details, communication protocols, and prototype. Moreover, it presents the IoT system validation by evaluating the power usage and latency when the prototype is communicating. For this assessment, we compared the system with Wi-Fi versus LoRa communication.