I am working on a project requiring regular image transmission over a 2km range. This needs to be done in an area with no cellular coverage.
Energy efficiency is a factor, however it does not need to be anywhere near as low as Lora for example (and hopefully a higher bitrate than Lora can achieve).
In an ideal scenario there will be approx 10 nodes (cameras + mcu + power supply) each sending images back to a central device approx 50 times per day.
Some additional details/parameters (as requested in comments):
- Approx transmission requirements of 50 * 5MP JPEG photographs per device. E.g. ~50*1.5MB = 75MB per device per day.
- Power is to be supplied to each camera by a small solar panel. 10W, 12V (ideally - however this can be varied within reason).
- The install location is a farm/rural environment, where most of the cameras will have some obstruction to line of site - e.g. from trees. But it is not fully built up.
- The budget is modest, sub $50AUD (~30USD) per device for the comms side of things. Obviously the cheaper the better, but for this project there is a bit of flex.
- Regarding frequencies- I am not entirely sure, a method that uses unlicensed spectrum would be strongly preferred.
I will greatly appreciate any suggestions! Many thanks for the assistance to commenters in helping me to better define my query.