A tangible monitoring system built around connected sensor hardware.
The project combined physical sensing, wireless communication, and cloud-based monitoring.
Project Overview
This UT Dallas EPICS project was completed for the UT Southwestern Medical Center BioDesign Center. The team developed an IoT monitoring solution using sensors, LoRa peer-to-peer communication, and cloud-based visualization.
The system was designed to collect information from physical equipment and make it available remotely through a centralized dashboard.
The problem
Making equipment status accessible without relying entirely on manual checks.
Remote monitoring
Lab personnel needed a way to monitor specialized equipment beyond in-person checks.
Device-to-system communication
Sensor data needed to travel wirelessly from physical devices to a receiving system.
Accessible information
Collected readings and status information needed to be visible through a centralized dashboard.
System architecture
From a physical event to a dashboard signal.
At a high level, the system moves information from local sensor hardware across a LoRa connection and into Grafana Cloud for monitoring.
01
Physical sensor / device
↓→
02
Microcontroller / local hardware
↓→
03
LoRa peer-to-peer communication
↓→
04
Receiving system
↓→
05
Local server / data handling
↓→
06
Grafana Cloud
↓→
07
Monitoring dashboard
My contribution
Monitoring, communication, and requirements.
I focused on the monitoring, stakeholder communication, and requirements side of the project.
Monitoring dashboards
Analyzed live sensor data and built 5 Grafana Cloud dashboards for monitoring equipment conditions and system status.
Threshold-based alerting
Created 12 threshold-based alerts to help identify equipment issues faster.
Stakeholder requirements
Gathered and clarified requirements directly with the UT Southwestern researcher stakeholder.
Feedback into the team
Translated stakeholder feedback into updates for the team as the project evolved.
Unblocking development
Proactively asked follow-up questions when the team encountered blockers, helping clarify requirements and keep development moving.
Building the system
Hardware, enclosure, and monitoring interface.
Real project artifacts from the system build and dashboard.
Inside the enclosure, showing the integrated electronics and wiring.Grafana Cloud views for equipment status, temperature, node readings, and doorbell status.The completed enclosure provides a finished housing for the local system hardware.
Technical implementation
Three connected layers of the system.
01
Sensing
The team built circuits to detect temperature changes, fridge door state, and a doorbell light event. These physical readings formed the inputs to the monitoring system.
02
Communication
Sensor nodes sent their data to a receiver through LoRa communication. This wireless link connected the physical sensing layer with the system collecting the readings.
03
Cloud & Visualization
Grafana Cloud displayed the collected data through time-series views, alert logs, and status panels, making the information available for remote monitoring.
The team developed sensor circuits, established LoRa communication between sensor nodes and a receiver, created a local server to pass collected data onward, and built a Grafana Cloud dashboard to display readings and status information.
Together, these parts demonstrated an end-to-end path from physical equipment sensing to remote visualization and alerts.
What I learned
Thinking across the full technical system.
Hardware and software
Designing software around signals and events generated by physical hardware.
Communication reliability
Considering how information moves reliably between separate devices.
System integration
Connecting sensing, wireless communication, data handling, and visualization into one system.
Technical communication
Documenting and presenting engineering work for a stakeholder-sponsored project.
