Smart Water Meter

6th Semester Mini-Project

by

Ritvik Kumar Rai, USN-1DS18EC138

Shankar Gouda S. Patil, USN-1DS18EC145
under the guidance of

Dr. S. Thenmozhi
Associate Professor, DSCE Bengaluru
 Aim

To make measurement of water consumption easy and aid in water

conservation efforts
 Objective

To create a smart water meter incorporating IoT (Internet of Things)

technology, which can accurately measure the amount of water flowing
through a pipe and communicate this information wirelessly to an end user.
 Background

• Why we are doing this project – So that water companies and consumers can easily monitor water
consumption to curb wastage by increasing awareness. Water consumption is on the rise and water
conservation and management techniques are more important than ever
• What new value are we creating? – This technology is new and is still in its nascent stage. A smart water
meter enabling automatic and remote water usage readings will be beneficial to water companies
eliminating the need for monthly visits to check the water meter manually. A high water consumption will
bring consumers to change their habits and also may indicate water leaks.
• Who may be interested in this project? – Possible stakeholders of this project are homeowners and owners
of buildings that consume water, as well as water supply companies and the government. Water meters
have been made a legal requirement in Karnataka for apartments and other buildings
• What are the functions of the project? – Water flow meters can be used for a variety of different
applications, like municipal water usage monitoring, and even for measuring flow liquids other than water
such as lubrication oils, polymer additives and printing ink. Pharmaceutical production also uses flow
meters for precise measurement of substances.
 Literature Survey

• What do research papers say?

• What are the past studies and projects conducted by others in this area?
• What was not covered by these studies?
• What are the gaps, themes and debates in these papers?
• What knowledge do we currently have surrounding the project?
• What research methods were used?
• What were the findings?
 Proposed methodology

An electromechanical water flow meter setup which can collect, compute and transmit data in
real-time has been proposed in this mini-project consisting of the following components:
• NodeMCU Amica MCU with in-built Wi-Fi communication capability for wireless
transmission of meter readings and battery level
• LCD display for in-person meter reading checks
• AA/AAA batteries used as power supplies
• Sleep mode for microcontroller unit to save battery power and battery level indicator
• Paddlewheel water flow sensor which uses the principle of Hall effect to measure number
of rotations as well as speed of rotation of a rotor due to flow of water
 IoT Architecture

Layers of a general IoT system

• Application – Mobile app / Web interface
• Gateway – Wi-Fi Router / Repeater
• Processor – NodeMCU Amica microcontroller
unit
• Sensor – Paddlewheel water flow sensor YFS-
201
 Conversion table from pulses to volume
(K-factor)

Where,
Q is the volumetric flowrate (m3 /s, l/min etc.)
Γ is the unit of time for the flowrate (e.g. multiply by 60 for flow rate per minute)
F is the frequency or number of pulses per second (Hz or 1/s)
K is the pulses per unit volume taken from the K-factor of the flow sensor (pulses/m3 ,pulses/litre,
etc.)
Characteristics of flow sensor (YFS-201)
Block Diagram
 Alternative Implementation Options

• Ultrasonic Flow Meter – works on time of flight or transit time principle, *[two transducers, ultrasonic signal sent by one and received by other, transit time is time taken by
ultrasonic signal to be transmitted from one transduce to the other, flow measured by comparing upstream and downstream time] *, no moving parts, used for slurries, sewage
and other dirty liquids which would damage other types of meters, costly, scarce availability
• Magnetic Flow Meter – no moving parts, used for dirty and conductive liquids
• Positive Displacement Flow Meter – for use with crooked pipes and viscous liquids, includes oscillating piston meters and nutating disk meters, measures the water
volume by dividing it into fixed volumes , measure the water volume by counting the number of times a chamber of a known volumeis filled and emptied, using
oscillating piston or nutating disc
• LoRaWAN protocol – low-power long distance communication, but expensive and requires additional LoRa gateways
• Cellular IoT – high power consumption but high range and easy network setup
• Bluetooth LE – very low power consumption, but very short range and additional intermediate computer/device required for internet connectivity
• Zigbee – low power consumption and good range, but poor compatibility with devices and other network protocols, subject to interference from nearby Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth signals
• Arduino Pro Mini – lowest power consumption among all Arduino models, but requires additional module for wireless transmission of data
 Expected Features

• Accurate water flow measurement

• Affordable cost
• Wireless connectivity using Wi-Fi
• Mobile application for effective data visualization
• Low power consumption and long battery life
• Battery level indicator and low battery warning
 Procedure and Current Progress

• Read research papers and website articles on the topic ✅

• Research alternatives for the water flow sensor and microcontroller unit (e.g., FS400 water flow meter, Arduino Pro Mini) ✅
• Order components online ✅
• Create an Android app for accessing water meter data ✅
• Design suitable power supply unit ✅
• Assemble and code components
• Package the smart water meter
• Improve the UI of the Android app
• Setup web database and network architecture (routing etc.)
 Current Inventory

• Quaduino UNO R3 MCU (unofficial Arduino UNO R3 clone): ~INR 699

• OLED SSD 1602 i2c: INR 399
• YFS-201 Hall-effect paddlewheel sensor: INR 324
• Essentials like breadboard, jumper cables, etc.: ~INR 300
• NodeMCU Amica Lua ESP8266-based MCU: INR 414
• CURRENT TOTAL: ~INR 2236
 Current Challenges and Limitations

• Scarce availability of suitable components online

• Inability to look for components in brick-and-mortar electronics stores due to the pandemic and lockdown
• Range of water flow data communication limited to the range of Wi-Fi connectivity (~150 feet)
• Power consumption needs to be low; battery life should be at least 2 months to avoid frequent battery replacement visits by maintenance
persons
• Data loss due to no connectivity/power
• Ability of homeowners to tamper with their water meters to pay lower water bills
• Security of data transmission and prevention of data access/modification by unauthorized parties
• High power consumption of Wi-Fi
• Paddlewheel water flow sensors are subject to wear when used with dirty water due to presence of moving parts, and the accuracy is low
when flow rate is low.
• Electromechanical meter with moving parts, requires extra protection for the electronic components, reduced stability
 Possible Future Features

• LoRaWAN, RF etc. long distance communication protocols

• Additional sensors for different water features such as pH level, temperature etc.
• Independence from external power using self-powering feature enabled by a
hydro-turbine / solar panel in exposed areas
• Leak detection and management
• Cloud database storage of water consumption history
• Standby modes and on/off button for modules
 Outcomes of the Mini-Project

• A smart water meter proof-of-concept which will be helpful to society in

measuring water consumption of buildings or measuring precise quantities
of liquids.
• Acquirement of knowledge of embedded systems design, Internet of Things
(IoT), app and web development, networking and database management as
well as practical, real-world project experience.
1. Websites and videos referred
References
• https://eleceng.dit.ie/gavin/Instrument/Fluid%20Flow/Turbine.htm

• https://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/yf-s201-water-flow-meter

• https://www.electroschematics.com/working-with-water-flow-sensors-arduino/

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y841yf-WjqE

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eymloSpi-BM&t=237s

2. Smart water meter businesses:

• https://smarterhomes.com/

• https://konarakmeters.com/

• https://www.pydro.com/

3. Articles about smart water meters

• https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/2019/apr/17/every-drop-counts-residents-adopt-smart-meters-to-conserve-water-1965133.html

• https://analyticsindiamag.com/iot-based-meter-helps-bengaluru-residents-reduce-water-wastage/

• https://analyticsindiamag.com/case-study-how-piramal-sarvajal-using-iot-to-tackle-safe-drinking-water-issue-for-rural-india/

• https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/now-heres-how-some-are-saving-over-50-water-in-bengaluru/articleshow/67123886.cms?from=mdr

• https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/individual-water-meters-to-be-a-must-for-apartments/articleshow/71546729.cms

• https://www.deccanherald.com/city/water-control-meters-must-for-buildings-in-karnataka-835316.html

• https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/bengaluru-water-crisis-individual-meters-rainwater-harvesting-be-mandatory-2020-110459

4. Research papers in the field

• [1] Li, X.J.; Chong, P.H.J. Design and Implementation of a Self -Powered Smart Water Meter. Sensors 2019, 19, 4177. https://doi.org/10.3390/s19194177

• [2] Muller, Regardt & Booysen, M.J. (Thinus). (2014). A Water Flow Meter for Smart Metering Applications. 9th South African Conference on Computational and Applied Mechanics, SACAM 2014.

• [3] Pimenta, N., Chaves, P. Study and design of a retrofitted smart water meter solution with energy harvesting integration. Discov Internet Things 1, 10 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43926-021-00010-x

• [4] Iñigo Monedero, Félix Biscarri, Juan I. Guerrero, Moisés Roldán, Carlos León, An Approach to Detection of Tampering in Water Meters, Procedia Computer Science, Volume 60, 2015, Pages 413-421, ISSN 1877-0509, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2015.08.157

• [5] Fuentes, H., Mauricio, D. Smart water consumption measurement system for houses using IoT and cloud computing. Environ Monit Assess 192, 602 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08535-4