LoRaWAN-based Visitors’ Assistance for Nature Forest Park

Abstract

Ecotourism activities in forest parks had attracted many visitors each day. However, the frequency of incidents involving visitors performing their outdoor activities in such area is also increasing tremendously. Getting lost, injured and incidents related to health problems such as strokes, heart attacks, hypothermia, or injuries are among the common scenarios that are mainly occurred. These scenarios can be managed better if a tracking and monitoring technology is in place. For the past few years, the Internet of Things (IoT) had introduced wearable technology to act as problem-solving. However, most of current tracking and monitoring devices are depending on wireless networks such as cellular (3G/4G/5G) or short-range such as WiFi and Bluetooth communication, which is unsuitable in poor internet connection or rural areas including in the forest parks. In this paper, a prototype has been developed and being tested using the Long-Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) communication, one of the Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) communication networks. The LoRaWAN will transmit all information through the LoRa gateway from the end device to the server. This wearable technology prototype had three main functions which include monitoring the visitors by tracking their exact location, measuring the heart rate and the visitors’ body temperature and send alert whenever the value exceeds specified threshold and navigating rescuer to the incident’s location, either to prevent the injury from being worsen or to locate the missing visitor’s. The prototype was successfully developed and tested for its performance and functionality.