OQ Technology Wins First Australian Project for Satellite IoT Forest Monitoring

OQ Technology has won its first funded project in Australia, marking the Luxembourg satellite IoT company's entry into the Australian market through a climate resilience and environmental monitoring programme in New South Wales.

Spin-off OQ Technology Australia's project, "Space-Enabled Smart Sensing for Forest Monitoring," has been selected as one of five projects funded through the NSW Smart Sensing Network (NSSN) Grand Challenge Fund 2026 as part of a consortium that also includes: Western Sydney University, University of New South Wales (UNSW), NSW Smart Sensing Network (NSSN), NSW Space Research Network (SRN), Scenic World, and the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute.

The project will deploy environmental sensor networks connected through OQ Technology's Low Earth Orbit NB-IoT satellite network to provide continuous monitoring in remote forest areas where terrestrial connectivity is limited. The monitoring system has been designed to collect data including; soil moisture, biodiversity activity, drought and climate stress indicators, and recovery rate after bushfires and extreme weather.

A new instrumented monitoring site will also be installed in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.

The deployment will use 3GPP standards-based NTN IoT, rather than proprietary satellite sensors, with OQ Technology's network which is designed for low-power IoT devices that can communicate directly with LEO satellites.