Mountainous and remote regions often lack real-time weather monitoring, significantly increasing the risk for climbers and adventurers. Sudden changes in weather, such as storms or strong winds, can occur without warning, putting lives at risk.
In these isolated areas, the absence of traditional communication networks, such as cellphone coverage, prevents the transmission of real-time forecasts and alerts, making it difficult to predict and respond swiftly to dangerous weather conditions or any life-threatening emergencies.
Mountain seen from below and above
The project consists of a series of small towers positioned from the mountain's peak to the nearest center with internet access. The main module, located at the top of the mountain, will be responsible for measuring climate variables such as wind speed, soil moisture, rainfall, air humidity, and temperature, powered by solar panels. This main tower will transmit its data to the next towers, which will act as repeaters, forwarding the signal until it reaches the final module with internet connectivity. This final module will then send the data to the AWS cloud.
Users will be able to monitor real-time weather conditions in the mountain, as well as access a reliable history of past measurements.
To demonstrate this, the team will build three or four towers: one prototype of the main tower, one or two repeater prototypes, and one prototype of the final module with internet access.
Main Tower
The main tower will consist of a robust box, with drilled holes for passing the sensors, solar panels, and antennas. Expanding spray foam will be applied to the holes to ensure waterproofing. Fragile components, such as the microcontroller (ESP32), batteries, and circuit board, will be securely housed inside the box.
The repeaters will have a similar structure to the main tower but without the sensors. They will also feature solar panels and antennas. The communication technology used will be LoRa (Long Range), which is known for its low cost, low energy consumption, and extended range.
The final tower, serving as the "server," will consist only of the microcontroller, antennas, and circuit board, as it won’t require weather protection or its own energy source since it will use standard power connetions.
The final tower, or "server," will have internet access using the WiFi module in the ESP32. It will utilize MQTT protocol to publish weather data to the cloud. An AWS Lambda function will subscribe to the MQTT channel and pass the information to an AWS DynamoDB database for storage. Users will be able to access this data through an Android app, which will communicate with another Lambda function to retrieve the information from the database.