InnOVATION PROJECT

Portable battery-operated Wi-Fi station and Sensor Mesh Network

GALLERY

CHALLENGE: Identify a real problem archaeologists face and build a working prototype that could help solve it.

🔍 Identify – The Problem

Archaeologists often work in remote excavation sites where:

Reliable internet or Wi-Fi is unavailable
Communication between team members is difficult
Environmental data (temperature, humidity, soil conditions) is not monitored in real time

💡 Our Innovation: ArchiNet

ArchiNet is a portable, battery-powered wireless mesh network designed specifically for archaeology fieldwork. It creates:

A reliable local Wi-Fi network for archaeologists to connect devices
A mesh of smart sensor nodes that collect and share real-time environmental data

All data is sent to a central hub and displayed on a live dashboard, allowing archaeologists to make faster, safer, and better-informed decisions at the dig site.

⚙️ How ArchiNet Works

Central Hub

Has battery, cellular router and Raspberry Pi 5
Pi 5 stores the data , shows the dashboard in Node Red.
Cellular router acts as Portable Wi-Fi Staton.
Battery provides 8-10 hrs uninterrupted power.

Root Node

The Root Node is built on an ESP32 Feather TFT.
Root Node listens to the leaf nodes and forward all sensor data to Pi 5

Leaf Node

Leaf nodes have ESP 32 feather v2 and different sensors.
Collects real-time environmental data such as temperature, humidity, et., across an archaeological site.
Broadcast data over mesh network to root.

📊 What ArchiNet Measures

Each mesh node can collect:

🌡️ Temperature (°C / °F)
💧 Humidity
🌱 Soil Moisture
💨 Air Quality & Gas Levels
☀️ Light Intensity
🔋 Node Battery Level

All data is timestamped, labeled by node, and displayed as tables and graphs.

🧠 Why ArchiNet Is Different

🔁 Our Design & Iteration Process

We didn’t build ArchiNet all at once — we iterated step by step:

Version 1: Basic sensors and ESP32 nodes
Version 2: Added networking and power systems
Version 3: Built dashboards for visualization
Version 4: Improved node reliability and soldered hardware
Version 5: Fully assembled, tested field-ready system

At each step we:
Tested → Fixed → Improved → Repeated

Dashboard

🏆 Conclusion

ArchiNet is a portable, scalable, and innovative solution that brings connectivity and intelligence to archaeology sites — helping teams unearth the past while protecting it for the future.

🚀 Why We Chose This Project

We chose ArchiNet because it allowed us to:

Combine coding, electronics, and building
Solve a real-world problem
Learn about networks, sensors, and data
Work as a true engineering team
Most importantly, it was fun, challenging, and meaningful.

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