Microwave Links

When the surrounding terrain demands a wider Orion coverage solution, for example in rural wide area locations covering tens of thousands of hectares, microwave links can be deployed to replicate Orion coverage reducing the cost and requirement of additional satellite backhaul routers (only required in the absence of internet connectivity). Below we can see the basic Orion network topology of an African Wildlife reserve.

Below we can see the basic Orion network topology of an African Wildlife reserve.

By using microwave links, the range can be extended many times over and into neighbouring valleys. In tests, Orion gateways in the African bush are typically seeing around 13 kilometres in range, or 33.6 square kilometers, all tags within this ‘bubble’ of coverage will report any sensor data or tagged assets being tracked in real time back to the central command point for real time data analytics, security and visibility solutions.

In certain situations, the location may only require stand alone access removing the requirement for satellite backhaul routers and further reducing costs. In this scenario, Microwave links can still be deployed around the park and work alongside the Orion gateways and tags as before, only this time, visibility is restricted to the local command center – In various scenarios, this can also be seen as an advantage, especially in high risk or sensitive locations such as militray operations or endangered wildlife national parks.