Inspiration
Our inspiration came from the need to improve aid workers' capabilities in remote areas with limited internet connectivity. We aimed to create a LoRaWAN-based solution that allows aid workers to manage supplies effectively by building their own decentralized network, that would be able to withstand foreign adversaries attempting to block aid from being managed.
What it does
Aid Net is a LoRaWAN database syncing utility and frontend. It enables aid workers to establish and manage a LoRaWAN mesh network, facilitating communication between nodes. Even if individual nodes go offline, the database continues to update, ensuring seamless operations. The frontend allows the users to modify their supplies so that they can request new supplies and mark their lower supplies as such, so it always works.
How we built it
We built Aid Net by developing a basic frontend in React for user interaction and implementing the syncing functionality, with mui datagrids at the heart of the interface, to allow easy sorting, filtering and editing of the tables. Our system leverages LoRaWAN technology to create a robust, decentralized network for syncing the databases between nodes, letting the aid workers see in real time, every change that happens
Challenges we ran into
Challenges included integrating LoRaWAN technology, with our ESP32 TTGO LoRa v1 devboards was slightly challanging as the serial interface was not perfectly reliable and the data transmission was sometimes subject to corruption. To correct for this, we implemented checksums via a protocol we developed ontop of LoRa WAN, to make sure the packets are managed successfully. Developing a user-friendly frontend within a limited timeframe was also a significant challenge.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud of successfully building a LoRaWAN-based solution that empowers aid workers in remote areas, managing supplies is incredibly important in remote countries, and although our project is a proof of concept, the idea of syncing databases over LoRa could potentially be implemented in real areas of conflict to manage supplies and prioritise the most urgently needed supplies.
What we learned
Throughout this project, we gained valuable insights into LoRaWAN technology, decentralized networks, and programming with PlatformIO. Programming the boards and getting the serial communication working consistently was a big challange we had to overcome
What's next for Aid Net
In the future, we plan to enhance the security and scalability of Aid Net, as we would like to implement hardware accelerated AES256 encryption, via the esp32 and we would like to develop a more comprehensive consensus algorithm for all the different nodes editing the database.
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