LoRa-Based Smart Transmission Tower Monitoring System Using ESP32, IoT, and Hive MQ MQTT

Author

Prof M.K. Parve, Kalyani Masram, Riya Bodne, Sakshi Fulzele, Snehal Hemane and Ashish Sayam


Abstract

  High-voltage electrical transmission towers form the backbone of modern power distribution networks. These structures are frequently located in remote, geographically challenging terrains exposed to harsh environmental factors, making them vulnerable to mechanical tilt, severe structural vibration, high ambient temperatures, and electrical overloads. Traditional manual inspection techniques are costly, labor-intensive, and inherently non-real-time, leading to delayed maintenance interventions and catastrophic structural or electrical failures.

This paper proposes a low-cost, real-time, long-range Structural Health and Electrical Monitoring System (SHEMS) tailored for transmission towers using LoRa wireless technology, dual ESP32 microcontrollers, and the Hive MQ Cloud MQTT broker. The prototype setup models a multi-node transmission link consisting of a Transmitting Tower (Tower 1), a Receiving/Relay Tower (Tower 2), and a Dummy Structural Tower (Tower 3) for multi-node physical setup validation. Tower 1 is equipped with an MPU6050 six-axis IMU for tilt angle estimation, an ADXL345/SW420 sensor for dynamic structural vibration detection, an infrared fire/heat sensor, a voltage sensor module, and an ACS712 Hall-effect current transducer driving an active DC electrical load. Sensor telemetry is ingested and evaluated locally on the primary ESP32 node. When threshold anomalies are detected, the system formats payload packets for long-range transmission via an SX1278 LoRa transceiver operating at sub-GHz frequencies. Tower 2 receives the LoRa telemetry packets, presents real-time data on an integrated 0.96-inch SSD1306 OLED display, and securely transmits telemetry data to a Hive MQ MQTT cloud broker via Wi-Fi for remote telemetry dashboard visualization and automated alert dispatch. Experimental testing indicates a LoRa packet delivery ratio (PDR) exceeding 98.2% at line-of-sight distances up to 3.8 km, with an average end-to-end cloud latency under 420 ms. The architecture provides a scalable, cost-effective, and energy-efficient paradigm for remote power infrastructure monitoring.



Keywords

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), LoRa Communication, ESP32 Microcontroller, Hive MQ MQTT, Transmission Tower Monitoring, Internet of Things (IoT), SX1278, MPU6050.



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References


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