I am trying to get a raspberry pi 4B to send data to an NCD edge computer over long range using 900MHz signal. The idea is that the pi will capture and analyze an image and the results will be transmitted to an edge computer. The pi will not be in a location with wifi access. The results are a few numbers, not images. I am a bit lost as to where I should start in terms of getting data sent from a raspberry pi to the edge computer.
I have the following hardware connected to the pi:
The easiest way would be to either use our Node-Red library @ncd-io/node-red-enterprise-sensors and build the data you want in Node-Red then send it using our Gateway node OR using Digi’s Python library to wrap the data up in the Digi API for transmission.
Either way will work and you can pipe data to either using a loopback TCP socket or can call an exec function to trigger an external software from either.
Thanks Jacob, I am completely new to all of this so I have a few clarifying questions.
Does the pi need to be running a node red server? Do all the NCD sensors have node red running on them? Do I build the data in the edge computer node red or the raspi node red?
Will the gateway automatically connect with the pi once the communication module and antenna are connected to the pi?
Do I need any additional hardware connected to the pi besides the shield and communication module + antenna?
Do I need to configure the xbee using xctu?
Do you recommended any resources that can help me with this?
No the Pi can be running any kind of software as long as it can push data out over a serial connection to a digi module. Preferably in an API structure which is why I recommended our node-red library or Digi’s Python library. No the sensors run an embedded processor that handles the digimesh API. I would recommend building the parsed data on the edge computer as json encoded data takes up substantially more bandwidth.
As long the configurations on the digi module are the same between the gateway and the Pi they will be able to talk to each other.
Your request is kind of broad to give specifics. If you wanted to go the Python route to push data out over the digimesh then I would recommend reading the docs for their library. If you wanted to use Node-Red library you can take a look at this flow for sending data: GitHub - ncd-io/node-red-flow-endnode-relay-example
You will want to make sure your Gateway node in the Enterprise Gateway is configured to output data from unknown devices as this will be a device outside the scope of our sensor library. At that point it will output out of a different output than standard sensor packets, but can still be parsed/processed afterward.