AARH Launches Acadia’s First LoRaWAN IoT Network for Real-Time Environmental Monitoring
Wolfville, N.S. - October 20, 2026
The AARH team at Acadia University has deployed its first LoRaWAN-based Internet of Things (IoT) network, and it is now fully operational on campus. The network is a new milestone in AARH’s on-campus activities and opens the way to a wider environmental monitoring effort at the K.C. Irving Centre (KCIC).
Two sensor nodes now transmit three streams of environmental data in real time. Each node works independently and needs no Wi-Fi connection. That matters because the KCIC deployment site has no Wi-Fi coverage. The team got around this by using LoRa, a long-range, low-power wireless technology built for exactly this kind of setting.
“This is an important achievement,” said Dr. Esteve Hassan. “It shows that we can establish reliable, long-range, low-power wireless sensor networks for remote environmental monitoring.”
A collaborative effort
The project brought together the full AARH team. Angelo designed and built the sensor enclosures, and the KCIC team coordinated the work and arranged access to the space.
“I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the entire AARH team for their hard work and collaboration in bringing this project to life,” said Dr. Esteve Hassan.
Shared infrastructure for Acadia researchers
The team’s next step is to scale up the deployment with other KCIC research groups. Plans include:
- adding more sensor nodes
- integrating additional types of environmental sensors
- expanding data collection and monitoring capabilities
The network also gives Acadia a shared IoT backbone that is useful well beyond this first project. Researchers across the university can build on it to test new ideas and start interdisciplinary collaborations.
See the data live
The environmental data from the network is public on the project’s live ThingSpeak dashboard:
https://thingspeak.mathworks.com/channels/3539966