A “smart data ecosystem” for agriculture and a project making environmental sensing technology more accessible for governments are among the finalists in the Research category of the 2024 Australian IoT Awards.

The awards are the official awards program of IoT Alliance Australia, Australia’s peak industry body for Internet of Things (IoT), and IoT Hub.

The entries provide a snapshot of how IoT is being used to advance productivity, security and sustainability across Australian industry and government, from water and energy to manufacturing and government services.

Winners of IoT Awards categories will be announced over networking drinks and canapes at the culmination of the 2024 IoT Impact conference on June 13 at UTS in Sydney.

In its fifth year, the IoT Impact conference and exhibition will explore, debate and uncover how Australia organisations can achieve sustainability goals, achieve trust and implement IoT technologies to create a data smart Australia. Purchase tickets and see the IoT Impact Conference agenda here.

The Research Award finalists:

University of Technology Sydney, Zetifi and Food Agility CRC’s farm-wide Wi-Fi: RF switching module and antenna system for enhancing rural and agricultural connectivity in Australia

This project aimed to develop a custom antenna array and RF system for long-range rural communications, aiming for a cost-effective solution to address social, economic, and safety challenges and facilitate research commercialisation in digital agriculture technologies.

This involved the design, fabrication, and testing procedures for novel omni-directional antennas and universal RF switching module for vehicular communication systems.

This work facilitates cost-effective local manufacturing through simple fabrication techniques and innovative design solutions.

NSW Smart Sensing Network and NSW Department of Environment’s OPENAIR project

This project aimed to make IoT environmental sensing technology more accessible and useful for governments by developing digital best practise information resources for councils, implementing low-cost IoT environmental sensors in the local government areas of participating councils, implementing an online air quality and IoT information hub, and implementing pilot data feeds.

A multi-disciplinary approach connected researchers from five universities and NSW Department of Environment with local governments. Among the results is development of a vendor-agnostic harmonised air quality data feed and API.

The NSW government has started planning expansion of this to include other types of environmental IoT sensors.

CSIRO’s randomised controlled trial: using IoT to support older people to live in their own homes for longer

This randomised controlled trial aimed to validate a CSIRO-developed iOS platform called Smarter Safer Homes (SSH) to support older people living independently at home.

The SSH trial was conducted as a large multi-site, community based RCT, in collaboration with three aged care providers.

Ambient sensors were installed around a person’s home to gather data which was pre-processed through a novel algorithm to infer essential activities of daily living including mobility, hygiene, dressing, food preparation, and socialisation. The sensors did not include wearables or video cameras and as such were designed to be unobtrusive and privacy preserving.

Final analysis and end trial reporting was conducted and released in FY22-23, with the study finding a positive impact on social care-related quality of life, but no significant differences between groups when it came to secondary outcomes such as health-related quality of life, functional independence, depression levels, health service utilisation and care giver burden.

Telstra, Charles Sturt University and Food Agility Cooperative Research Centre’s Smart Data Ecosystem, addressing the challenges of integrating and accessing multiple data sources in agriculture for research and education purposes

This project aimed to address the challenges of integrating and accessing multiple data sources in agriculture, especially for research and education purposes.

It endeavoured to prove a permissioned, scalable and secure data sharing platform could provide value to all stakeholders including farm, agritech organisations and industry (represented by Charles Sturt University).

The project used the Telstra Data Hub, a cloud-based platform designed to enable secure and seamless data sharing and collaboration among stakeholders and technology providers.

This connected data from weather and moisture sensors, in addition to soil maps and data about crop yield and field boundaries, and made them available for CSU researchers, students and partners to use for various applications in a non-technical, user-friendly way.

Thank you to all entrants

If your entry isn’t a finalist, that does not mean the judges thought it was without merit. Separating the nominations was not always straightforward. Thank you for giving the judges the opportunity to learn more about your achievements.

A special thank you to the award judges who brought valuable knowledge in key domains to the judging process.

We also thank IoT Skills Australia for making the 2024 IoT Awards possible though their sponsorship.

The IoT Impact conference will be held in Sydney on 13 June, 2024, at the Great Hall, UTS. Purchase tickets and see the IoT Impact Conference agenda here.