IoT Based Liquid Level Monitoring and Control System

Internet of Things (IoT) Based Liquid Level Monitoring and Control System (IoT-LLMCS) is a smart water management system that focuses on the water scarcity problem of Pakistan and proposes an approach to reduce the wastage of water in daily life at the domestic level and industrial level. IoT-LLMCS

Project Title

IoT Based Liquid Level Monitoring and Control System

Project Area of Specialization

Internet of Things

Project Summary

Internet of Things (IoT) Based Liquid Level Monitoring and Control System (IoT-LLMCS) is a smart water management system that focuses on the water scarcity problem of Pakistan and proposes an approach to reduce the wastage of water in daily life at the domestic level and industrial level. IoT-LLMCS is a customized embedded system and configurable solution that provides real-time water level monitoring and water quality monitoring remotely for custom-sized tanks, reservoirs, or storage containers from any location at any time through a smart mobile application. The embedded system is designed with level sensors and quality sensors (pH and TDS) which detect the amount and quality of water and send the information to the controller which performs the task according to the user requirement. Furthermore, this smart system offers to remotely control devices by turning them on and off the water motor pump, setting the timer-based ON/OFF of pump, and controlling the pump by monitoring the percentage of water to control water pump through a mobile application. It will be able to improve accuracy and reduce the risk of human errors by automatically controlling the water pump. Remote monitoring of the water level in the underground tank and overhead tank in real-time will effectively manage the home inventory. The proposed system has environmental benefits, such as improved visibility on potential water and power wastage situations. It is much easier to rapidly deploy countermeasures if levels become too high or low. Water wastage could be curbed in a cost-effective way that will contribute to environmental safety on a parallel basis. Furthermore, it will be able to protect the water pumps from running dry and thus ensure durability. It is a cost-effective solution that can help in saving power. In addition, it provides GSM and Bluetooth connectivity in case of unavailability of the internet. Moreover, this solution can be used to monitor any kind of liquid, for instance, water, fuel, diesel, chemicals, etc. In this project, we are focusing on the monitoring, control, and quality check of water to save the water from being waste as it is the essential need of every individual on earth.

Project Objectives

The main objective of the system is to monitor and control the water level in the overhead tank and underground tank, measures to be taken to avoid unnecessary overflow of water, and calculate the statistics of water usage at the domestic level by informing the user through the mobile application. If contaminated, the water treatment is not a part of this scope, however, the water filling can be stopped in both tanks or notify the user about it. Project achievable objectives are as follows.  

1. To develop a test rig for small-scale water storage and supply system which consists of an underground tank, overhead tank, water pump, water pipes, etc.
2. To develop an IoT-based product for monitoring and controlling the water quantity and quality of overhead as well as underground water tanks.
3. To control the water pump for getting water supply from water utility pipe and check its availability.
4. To develop a cloud-server-enabled mobile application for visualizing and monitoring the status of both water tanks.
5. To provide the different modes (Bluetooth and GSM) in case of unavailability of the internet.

Project Implementation Method

A typical water pumping system contains an underground tank to store water coming from water utility providers, a water motor pump to pump the water into the overhead tank so that water can be used for household applications. The working methodology of the proposed IoT-LLMCS is as follows.

The IoT-LLMCS checks the availability of water from main water utility resource/pipes (bore wells, municipalities, etc.). The main part of entire system is hardware, which includes controller, sensors, batteries, and overall structure of the system. While software parts cover visualization of the data in mobile application dashboard to display data in real-time in a chart form or in a value form. It also includes IoT and cloud setup for data display and integration of GSM modules to get access to the system using SMS. The water level and water quality sensors are connected with the ESP32 (MCU), which in turn is connected with the relay to control water pump. Using internet, ESP 32 (MCU) sends and receives data or command to/from Cloud for performing a real-time operation, else users can send and receive data on SMS. A user can control the system using a mobile app interface.

The IoT-LLMCS is a smart system that comes with two modules; transmitter and receiver module, mounted on the overhead and underground tank respectively. Both modules communicate wirelessly by using ESP-LoRa-32 transceiver. The transmitter module is built with a LoRa transmitter and level monitoring sensor for detecting level of water present in overhead tank. The receiver module is built with a LoRa receiver and level monitoring sensor for detecting the level of water present in underground tank. It also consists of water quality sensors for detecting the quality of water in underground tank.

This receiver module is programmed to perform following tasks

• It allows water to fill in overhead tank, if the water in overhead tank falls below a certain predefined percentage, then it sends request to switch on the water pump after checking availability of water in underground tank and vise versa.
• If the quality of water is below the predetermined value, it does not allow to fill the water in overhead tank. 
• It is set to control the water pump by turning it ON/OFF. 

IoT cloud is set up by using Azure IoT Hub. The receiver module sends the data to IoT cloud which stores and processes data using stream analytics job and SQL database. Application Programming Interface (API) is hosted on azure to display the data in the mobile application which is developed in Flutter for giving users a water management interface. It has the following task:

• Display water level in overhead tank
• Display motor state (ON/OFF)
• Inform user about availability of water from the water source
• Inform user about the quality of water 
• Display water level in underground tank
• Provide data about water consumption
• Provide accessibility to turn ON/OFF water pump remotely
• Set schedule or automatically turn ON/OFF the water pump

Benefits of the Project

IoT-LLMCS is a smart device that can save water and can contribute to not witnessing a future of water scarcity. It has the following benefits.

• Water wastage saving at the domestic level as well as industrial level.
• Empowers the water utility providers to remotely monitor the reservoir and pipes in real-time.
• Provides environmental benefits, such as improved visibility on potential water and power wastage situations.
• Stops the user from consuming bad quality water. 
• Provides the monthly water consumption records so that the users can manage the number of water tankers they need in a month if water is not coming from the supply.
• Provides a smart way to manage water in apartments.
• Reduce manual labor in industries for monitoring the huge water tanks.
• Helps the water from being stolen from industrial tanks.
• Allow the users to control their water pump even if they are not in their homes.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

The hardware/software integrated system will be delivered to the user which has the following items.

• Embedded system integrated with level sensor and wireless communication module for the overhead tank. This system comes with a solar chargeable cell.
• Embedded system integrated with level sensor, quality sensor, and water flow sensor for the underground tank which will work on 220V AC supply and comes with an adapter which converts the AC to DC for the controller operations.
• Mobile application (Android, iOS, and Web) in which users can select the shape and size of their tanks and get real-time water level monitoring data, water quality monitoring data, and monthly water consumption records. Users can also control the water pumps by setting the threshold values, and scheduling time for the water pump to operate.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Core Industry

IT

Other Industries

Medical , Food , Energy , Manufacturing , Others , Health

Core Technology

Internet of Things (IoT)

Other Technologies

Cloud Infrastructure, Clean Tech

Sustainable Development Goals

Clean Water and Sanitation, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Sustainable Cities and Communities, Responsible Consumption and Production

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com