LPWAN SOLUTIONS
Silo Grain level Monitoring
Enhancing agricultural productivity through real-time grain inventory intelligence
Safeguard crop yield quality with continuous non-contact silo monitoring
Protecting farm worker safety by eliminating hazardous manual silo climbs
Optimizing bulk feed supply chains through predictive storage analytics
Solution
The Silo Grain Level Monitoring Solution provides near-real-time grain height tracking, calculated bulk volume estimates, fill/drawdown rates, and customizable threshold alerts for agricultural grain silos, feed bins, and commercial storage facilities—eliminating the need for dangerous manual ladder climbs and inaccurate estimation methods. Engineered for rapid field installation, the solution comes pre-configured out of the box to automatically stream encrypted sensor telemetry directly to the Ellenex Software Platform.
This IoT-driven agricultural inventory solution offers several key advantages:
Zero-Touch Field Deployment: Delivered fully pre-programmed for the Ellenex Platform. Enables immediate plug-and-play installation atop storage bins without requiring local software setup, driver downloads, or complex field provisioning.
Flexible Dual LPWAN Connectivity: Choice of LoRaWAN® (ideal for private farm networks or grain co-ops with zero recurring airtime fees) or NB-IoT / LTE-M (for direct public cellular transmission across distributed sites).
Vendor-Agnostic Interoperability: Operates natively with the Ellenex Software Platform straight out of the box, while remaining fully open for seamless integration with third-party LoRaWAN Network Servers (LNS), enterprise SCADA, and farm management software.
Dust-Penetrating Radar Sensing: High-frequency 80 GHz non-contact radar continuously measures grain height through dense airborne dust, acoustic noise, and temperature stratification during active filling and emptying cycles.
Rugged Dust-Ignition Proof Build: Features a dust-ignition proof IP68 non-contact radar head and an IP66 UV-stabilized transmitter enclosure engineered for harsh, explosive agricultural storage environments.
Low Total Cost of Ownership: Ultra-low power architecture paired with a replaceable 3.6V Lithium battery delivers maintenance-free battery operational lifespans of up to 10 years.
Fast Return on Investment: Maximizes financial returns by preventing costly feed stockouts, eliminating fall risks from manual bin inspections, and optimizing bulk feed delivery logistics through real-time inventory tracking. Learn More
Easy Install
Pre-Configured
Secure
Quick ROI
Rugged Design
Battery Operated
Our Silo Grain Level Monitoring Solution provides a comprehensive approach to efficient inventory management and critical infrastructure monitoring. By leveraging cutting-edge 80 GHz non-contact radar level sensors, farmers, grain co-ops, and commercial feed mills can track, control, and optimize their bulk storage systems in real time. The result is a future-proof solution that not only addresses current operational challenges but also adapts to changing agricultural supply chain demands, ultimately protecting worker safety, crop quality, and operational profitability.
Connecting remote grain silos and feed bins to a central digital network transforms static storage structures into an intelligent infrastructure monitoring network. By feeding continuous sensor data directly to a cloud platform, facility managers and livestock operators gain complete control over every bin on their property while eliminating stockouts and overfills that drive financial waste.
Asset Visibility
Continuous telemetry from dust-penetrating 80 GHz radar sensors provides complete operational oversight across every grain silo location through a single, centralized dashboard. Instead of relying on manual, periodic ladder climbs or bin tapping that leave long gaps between inspections, operators receive live updates on bulk grain volume, fill percentages, and headroom clearance. Automated low-level threshold alerts immediately flag rapid depletion, enabling farm managers to schedule feed deliveries ahead of time and avoid catastrophic feeding interruptions.
Resilient Operation
Continuous telemetry from IP68 dust-ignition proof radar hardware ensures complete operational resilience inside aggressive agricultural environments through a single, centralized dashboard. Mounted safely at the top interior of the silo, the non-contact radar beam operates completely above the material surface, avoiding mechanical wear, grain bridging pressure, and abrasive dust accumulation. Powered by an internal long-life battery and protected by a UV-stabilized enclosure, the system functions continuously through power grid interruptions, ensuring farm managers maintain real-time inventory visibility during critical harvest seasons.
Resource Sustainability
Digitizing grain storage directly advances agricultural sustainability by optimizing feed distribution and drastically reducing grain spoilage. Precise headroom measurements prevent bin overfilling, eliminating crop spillage and post-harvest grain waste around the silo pad. Furthermore, sharing real-time inventory levels directly with feed suppliers allows for route optimization, grouping farm deliveries efficiently to cut truck mileage, lower fuel consumption, and reduce total fleet carbon emissions across regional agricultural supply chains.
Battery-Powered Silo Grain Level Monitoring With LoRaWAN® Or NB-IoT / LTE-M Connectivity For Agricultural And Industrial Storage.
Core Operational Capabilities
80 GHz Non-Contact Radar Sensing Element
LoRaWAN / NB-IoT / LTE-M
Dust-Ignition Proof / IP68 Rated Non-Contact Radar Head
IP68 UV-Protected Enclosure
Up to 10-Year Battery Life
Cloud / API / SCADA Integration
Precision Grain Inventory and Silo Level Monitoring Using Ellenex 80 GHz Non-Contact Radar Sensors and NB-IoT or LoRaWAN Technology
LM-SI-G
Precise grain inventory management and real-time silo level monitoring are vital to prevent costly stockouts, eliminate hazardous manual ladder climbs, and safeguard crop yield quality across agricultural supply chains.
Industrial Outdoor LoRaWAN Gateway Specifications
For customers deploying the LoRaWAN package, the high-performance industrial gateway provides complete self-managed coverage. It is pre-configured to forward packet data to the Ellenex Platform.
System Architecture
The integrated Solution telemetry platform is designed around a dual-LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network) hardware architecture, giving operators the flexibility to deploy either LoRaWAN or cellular-based (supporting NB-IoT and LTE Cat M1) network configurations depending on local infrastructure and regional topology. Both communication technologies represent the cutting edge of industrial IoT, designed to penetrate challenging physical barriers and achieve multi-kilo meter propagation distances while maintaining extremely low electrical current draws.
The Ellenex telemetry pipeline follows a streamlined 4-step end-to-end data flow designed to give customers total choice over their network infrastructure and software platform:
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Sensor: The single Ellenex battery-powered field device directly measures physical parameters, digitizes analog signals, applies factory calibration parameters, packages telemetry into AES-128 encrypted payloads, and manages low-power sleep modes within a unified unit. Learn More:
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Wireless Infrastructure Options:
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Option A (LoRaWAN Option): Transmits sub-GHz radio packets to an Ellenex Pre-Configured Outdoor Gateway. The gateway acts as a transparent Layer-1/Layer-2 RF-to-IP bridge. Learn More
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Option B (Cellular NB-IoT / LTE-M Option): Transmits encrypted telemetry directly across licensed 3GPP cellular networks to public mobile base station towers. Learn More.
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3. Network Core & Data Routing Layer: Encrypted sub-GHz packets are securely routed from the gateway to the Ellenex Network Server (LNS). The LNS manages crucial network functions—including device authentication, payload decryption, and frame deduplication—ensuring clean, secure sensor data is seamlessly delivered to Ellenex Software Platform.
4. Data Processing & Platform Visualization: All telemetry is ingested, decoded, and visualized seamlessly within the Ellenex Cloud Software Platform. The software transforms raw sensor data into actionable insights through real-time dashboards, historical trend analysis, threshold alerting, and device health management.
Connectivity & Visualisation Platform
With its advanced features and ease of use, Ellenex’s software platform enables effective monitoring and management of remote operations—ensuring efficient, sustainable, and reliable resource management.
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Encrypted ultra-low power communication protocol.
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Advanced device inventory.
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Integration of APIs for enterprise systems.
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Multi-tenant role-based access control.
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Data export and import.
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White-label platform for enterprise runs on private accounts.
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Variable alarm setting for high and low thresholds and multi-channel alerting.
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Sampling and transmission interval configuration.
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Transmission condition configuration.
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Other configurations and customizations available on request.
Ellenex's software platform is a comprehensive, user-friendly solution specifically designed for remote monitoring and management.
The platform offers a robust range of features tailored for off grid, distributed, and critical operations, including:
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Real-Time Data Visualization: Monitor live operational status, levels, and key metrics across all your locations from a centralized dashboard.
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Customizable Alerts & Notifications: Receive instant warnings for threshold breaches, sudden drops, or anomalous activity before minor issues become costly failures.
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Historical Data Analysis & Predictive Analytics: Track consumption patterns, analyze usage trends, and forecast future demand to optimize maintenance and supply schedules.
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Seamless System & API Integration: Easily feed raw or aggregated telemetry into your existing enterprise software, SCADA, or ERP systems using Ellenex’s secure Open API.
Key Benefits
Ellenex Software Platform Dashboard
Individual Device Details & Data Analytics View
Parameter Configuration and GPS Location View
Device Management Interface
Historical Data & Performance Analytics
Remote Command and Downlink Control Log
Ellenex Asset Monitoring App
Custom alert and Notification Setup Interface
Data Export and Reporting Interface
Webhook and Data Forwarding Interface
Sensor Calibration and Formula Configuration
Integration Options
A core competitive advantage of the solution is its complete pre-configured, plug-and-play design. Both the cellular and LoRaWAN (with local gateway) variants arrive fully configured and ready for connection to the Ellenex platform out of the box, eliminating the complexities of local software setup, sensor programming, or manual network registration.
The end-to-end package includes the following integration characteristics:
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Zero Technical Hassles: No extra power tools, driver setup, or developer configurations are required. Deployment is completed in under 5 minutes.
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Pre-Configured Gateway Provisioning: The industrial outdoor gateway is pre-commissioned to automatically bind with the Ellenex LNS stack. Once powered via PoE or DC, it immediately discovers sensors, decrypts the payloads, and relays them directly to the centralized cloud dashboard, seamlessly routing data to the Ellenex Platform.
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Pre-Configured SIM & Connectivity: For NB-IoT deployments, the transmitter is shipped with a pre-configured 4FF Nano-SIM card and active carrier subscription, ready to transmit on regional networks immediately upon power-up.
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Unified Fleet Visualization: Once powered on, both device variants automatically check in and populate their respective live measurement streams to the user’s centralized mobile app or web dashboard.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does 80 GHz radar technology measure grain levels during active filling when heavy dust is present inside the silo?
The Silo Grain Level Monitoring Solution uses high-frequency 80 GHz non-contact electromagnetic radar waves that penetrate airborne dust clouds, acoustic noise, and air currents generated by pneumatic grain filling. Unlike ultrasonic sensors that get distorted by acoustic changes and suspended dust particles, the 80 GHz radar signal passes directly through atmospheric dust to bounce off the solid grain surface, returning precise distance measurements directly to the Ellenex Software Platform.
How does the system account for uneven grain surface profiles, such as peaks and valleys during loading?
The Ellenex Software Platform incorporates advanced signal processing and geometry calibration tools to map the radar measurement against specific silo dimensions. While the narrow, focused 80 GHz beam targets a specific point on the bulk material, the platform applies volumetric algorithms based on the grain angle of repose, silo diameter, and cone bottom parameters. This converts distance measurements into highly accurate percentage fill levels and total estimated volume metrics.
Is the monitoring unit safe for installation in silos with combustible agricultural dust?
Yes, the sensing element features a dust-ignition proof IP68 non-contact radar head built specifically to operate safely in dust-hazardous agricultural environments. The non-contact design ensures no mechanical friction or electrical sparks occur inside the bin, meeting industrial safety needs for grain elevators, commercial feed mills, and co-op storage infrastructure.
How does automated monitoring eliminate workplace safety risks on farms and co-ops?
Manual inventory tracking traditionally requires farm workers or site technicians to climb tall exterior silo ladders to open top hatches and drop manual tape measures—a leading cause of serious agricultural falls and confined-space hazards. By streaming continuous telemetry to the Ellenex Software Platform, managers can view exact grain levels remotely on their smartphones or desktop computers, completely eliminating routine ladder climbs and protecting staff from fall hazards.
What connectivity variant should be chosen for remote farm sites spread over large geographic regions?
For individual farms or agricultural co-ops with silos spread across wide regional territories, the NB-IoT / LTE-M cellular variant (-N) connects directly to licensed mobile networks without needing local infrastructure. For consolidated farm yards or processing facilities with multiple bins in close proximity, the LoRaWAN variant (-L) uses sub-GHz radio communication to transmit data to a single Ellenex Outdoor Gateway, eliminating ongoing SIM card fees while ensuring all data reaches the Ellenex Software Platform.
Can live grain inventory data be integrated directly into automated feed ordering or ERP systems?
Yes, while the native Ellenex Software Platform provides full visualization, inventory reporting, and alert setups out of the box, it offers an open, API-first architecture. Feed mills, agricultural enterprise systems, and grain traders can utilize Ellenex REST APIs, Webhooks, or MQTT data streams to feed live volume metrics directly into enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, automatically triggering purchase orders or scheduling delivery trucks when bin levels cross a low threshold.
