What is Low Power Wide Area Networks

Wave overtopping is a dangerous phenomenon that, in a port environment, takes place when waves that are higher than the port's breakwater meet it and water passes over the structure. This event can lead to property damage or physical harm to port workers. It is difficult to detect an overtopping, so this chapter proposes a solution to the overtopping detection problem by describing the design and development of a system that can detect an overtopping event in real-time and in a real environment. To achieve this goal, the proposed overtopping detection system is based on devices that use ultrasonic ranging sensors and communicate using the Sigfox low-power wide-area network, together with a backend that processes the data the devices send, issuing alerts to inform the interested parties that an overtopping took place.