SENSE IoT Platform for Environmental Research

SENSE is a modular IoT platform designed for environmental monitoring

and remote control. It consists of three core components:

Hardware:

• Custom PCB featuring a dual-MCU architecture:

• nRF9161 for cellular connectivity and control tasks

• nRF5340 for interface management (USB, SDI-12)

• Easily extensible with external sensors

Firmware:

• Written using Zephyr RTOS (Nordic Connect SDK)

• Compile time configurable via Kconfig

• Asynchronous architecture for efficient task handling

• Supports unit tests and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing

Web Platform:

• Python-based application with multi-process architecture

• Asynchronous REST API built with FastAPI

• Swappable database backend for storing device data

• Efficient CoAP messaging using CBOR-encoded payloads