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This paper presents design reconfiguration of analog water meter to provide remote access to user water consumption and billing records, payments, and meter device monitoring using photo-encoding as the detecting method for water consumption, a PIC18F2423 microcontroller for data processing, and SMS (short message service) technology for data trans...
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... regulation and also reduce the level of noise in the output voltage in the analog environment, coupling capacitors C1 to C4 were included in the power circuit model. To achieve the output voltage of 4.5V, the following component values were determined for the circuit model: V IN - 9V, R1 - 180 Ω , R2 - 470 Ω , C1 - 0.1 μ F, C2 - 10nF, C3 - 1000 μ F, and C4 - 10nF. The meter interface circuitry has three major integrated systems: the photo-encoder, microcontroller, and the GSM circuitry. The photo encoder system, which is the front-end unit, converts the flow of water through the meter into representative electrical pulses that are processed, manipulated, stored, and transmitted. As the water flows through the meter, the impeller rotates and with the aid of patterned disks, light source, and photo- sensitive elements embodied in the device, the volume flow information is derived and converted into electrical pulses. For this study, a single-turn photo-encoder with word length of 10 bits per revolution was used. To create a model of this, the photo-encoder device was first connected in circuit and its characteristic waveform pattern was acquired. This pattern which was observed as square waveform with short or long period depending on the rate of flow of water was modeled in Proteus and interfaced to the microcontroller model for processing as depicted in Figure 3 below. The microcontroller converts the photo-encoder electrical signal into numerical representation of the water flow reading through the meter, which is stored in the EEPROM and made available to the CS system as required. The PIC18F2423 microcontroller with the following basic features was used for the simulation due to the availability of the device for the prototype: 0-40MHz operating frequency, 12-bit ADC with 8192 word, 16Kbytes flash program memory, 768bytes data memory, and serial (SSP and USART) communication peripheral. The microcontroller was also configured to check events such as meter errors or defects, battery condition, and tampering and send the notification message to the CS via SMS as and when such events occur. Figure 4 shows the flow diagram of the microcontroller operation. To facilitate data transmission to and from the CS system, the microcontroller was interfaced to a GSM board, which was modeled as a virtual terminal in Proteus. Figure 5 shows a simulation of SMS data transmission from the water meter to the CS system via the GSM board. The microcontroller sends the SMS data using the UART, which is initialized using 19200 baud rate. The Port RB0 of the microcontroller was used as an interrupt initiator to detect only high values or voltage level of the waveform. With the detection of a high value, the system computes the volumetric equivalent of the signal received. Anytime a meter request is received from the CS, the microcontroller sends an AT command to the GSM board. For example, a command such as “AT+CMGR=1”, corresponds to reading of a message from location 1 of the inbox of the GSM. The architecture for the CS system implemented is shown in Figure 5. The CS system has three main interface elements comprising an SMS gateway, application system software, and a database server. With the CS gateway, two forms of data communication systems were implemented as shown in Figure 1 above: in-bound and out-bound. The in-bound involves the inter-communication between the microcontroller and the CS without any external request from an end-user. The microcontroller initiates communication with the CS based on a pre- coded schedule for such activity. This schedule is dependent on the how often the water utility house wants such request to be implemented. For this work, data transfer on consumption from the microcontroller to the CS system was scheduled to take once a week (four times) in a month for bill processing. In the event of meter tampering or malfunction, the microcontroller was scheduled to initiate an alarm signal to the CS for review and subsequent issuing of notification signal to the integrated application system for the requisite action. With the out-bound communication, the CS initiates communication as a result of response to query by an end-user seeking for information. The current system supports real-time cumulative consumption data only for any period within a month and also only one historical monthly record. Charges for consumption are only computed on monthly basis. Figure 6 shows a simulation model of the SMS data transmission from the microcontroller to the CS gateway for the case of SMS transmission arising from tampering detection. The data collected on consumption is sent to the billing table of the database where it is stored. The application system was developed using the visual studio.net. The system serves as an intermediary and it controls the CS by invoking the required applications. To handle users request on consumption data, billing, payment or control operations the sequence diagram in Figure 7 was implemented. The application system issues scheduled monthly information to users via SMS with content such as volume consumed, the bill, and any payments made covering the month and date as well as available credit. The rate structure used for the bill development was based on the tariff structure of the water utility in Ghana. To provide security in the transaction process, a user is required to register the meter ID and password. These are used to authenticate the user anytime an SMS request is submitted to the CS for processing. For example, a user seeking to make payment is required to submit a voucher code together with the meter ID to CS. The voucher generator system decodes the voucher to confirm the amount involved, which is then followed by authentication of the meter ID before the transaction is concluded. With regards to general access to information, a user is required to provide the meter ID and password for authentication before access is granted to the user. A mechanism that controls the operation of the meter device in the event of unavailable credit facility was incorporated in the design. Following detection of unavailable user credit facility on the system, the billing system is scheduled to generate a signal that stops the water flow automatically through the control of a solenoid. To implement the prototype system, an existing analog water meter and off-the shelf components were used as shown in Figure 8. The photo-encoder was integrated to the impellor of the water meter to measure the volume of water through the meter in the form of electronic signals. The photo-encoder used was the Hamamatsu P6921 photo-interrupter device with a high-power infra-red LED and a photo IC. The encoder has input voltage of 3V - 5V and power of 80mW. The signal from the photo-encoder was integrated to the microcontroller for processing and transmission. The microcontroller used was PIC18F2423 with voltage range of 2-5.5V, run mode current of 11 μ A, and crystal frequency of 0-40MHz. The microcontroller output was interfaced to the GSM board to facilitate data transmission. The GSM board used was from the Samsung SGH 330 mobile phone with input voltage of 3.7V, current of 800mA, and power rating of 29mW. The GSM board was connected to the meter circuit. The meter interface system was powered using a 9V battery which was regulated to give an output of 4.5V. The system was tested for performance and response time as well as other functionalities such as billing and data management applications. To validate the functionality of the prototype, an SMS was first generated and sent from the application system to the microcontroller to request for user meter reading of consumption and billing information and a response on the volume of water consumed in cubic meters and bill were received. This was followed by an SMS query from a mobile phone to access data from the meter via CS gateway. The requested information was received on the phone to confirm the functionality of the system. During the testing phase the average time of 16 seconds round trip was recorded from the time of SMS request to the CS for meter reading request and back to the user. Bulk of the time (over 90%) was used for the SMS transmission on the GSM network. The worst case time that was recorded for the SMS transmission to the CS was 6 seconds whilst the best case time recorded was 3 seconds for the SMS transmission. This gave a total round trip time of 24 seconds and 12 seconds respectively. It is clear therefore that if the state and health of the GSM network is good, the time demand may be reduced significantly and the operational performance may be improved. The system was also tested against tampering, malfunction, error in meter reading, and battery condition such as inadequate battery power. The Google Map API was used to plot the location of the testing device and the nature of the problem encountered. Figure 9 shows a sample map indicating location of a meter device that was tampered by the end-user. The case of low power supply (battery) to the system was also detected especially as the system was left to operate over a long time due to the continuous testing and the alarm system was able to detect this problem. Much as the prototype produced expected results and also the application system deployment to satisfactory level, it was however, difficult to examine the complexities associated with handling of congestion from multi- users since only one meter was practically deployed for the test. This was however tested at the application system level and it produced good results due to the multi-threading algorithm that was implemented. Another challenge is the duration of the power source or battery power. Since power supply is very critical to the smooth operation of the system, it is important that the battery power should be capable of serving the life time of meter. To determine the power requirement, an average power ...
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Citations
... A smart meter not only helps the consumer understand the load consumption but also serve as a platform for load control, thus significantly improving energy conservation [6]. By replacing existing analog water meter devices with digital-based system one, all processes can be carried out automatically by the machine, by including application software for centralized reading of water usage on the server [7]. The development of automation, telemetering and telecontroling technology is more than enough to support the digitalization and automation of conventional water meter devices [3], [8], [9]. ...
... W. Zheng, Z. Yang, L. Feng et al. [4] meter value is captured using camera and transmitted via 3G wireless network to the server. Short message service is used in [7] to enquire automatic water meter reading. Y. Li, X. Yan, L. Zeng et al. [10] develops multi level relay and concentrator to lower the power consumption although more complicated. ...
The local water supply corporation in Indonesia only uses analog water meter so that the monitoring of water usage information was conducted by officers manually. Officers must physically monitor the value in the customer's water meter that can lead to unreliable reading and ineffectiveness of process. Smart meter is one of the smart city metrics which could overcome this problem. This research uses the flow sensor to design and incorporate automated water meters. The measured value is then passed via the 433 MHz LoRa, a low-power wide-area network protocol, to the local hub, then forwarded to the server via the internet based cellular network. Results show that our proposed system's accuracy hit 97.31% at an ideal distance of 200 meters from customer to the local hub. The customer's water usage could be tracked in real time with our proposed system. Furthermore, the original water meter need not to be replaced which may minimize capital costs for this system.
... Local water supply companies certainly have a great responsibility to be able to provide solutions to problems like this, especially those that have to do with the handling of frequent human error officers in reading meters and entering data manually into the system. This problem will be solved by changing the system by replacing existing analog water meter devices into digital [1], so that all processes can be done in automatic, by including application software for monitoring, warning, and reporting. ...
Local water supply company in Indonesia still uses analog water meter, hence the data recording of customer’ water usage was carried out by officers manually. It is certainly an inefficient and risky method that could produce errors. Moreover, not all water meter data could be recorded at the time officers come to the location, for example in vacant houses, that could causing customers suffer the consequences such as fine for late payment. In this study, we proposed a new water meter reading system design which contains a conversion device that could convert analog water usage data into the digital one, installed in existing analog meter. The converted data would be transmitted to local concentrator using a 433 MHz wireless transceiver network and sent to the server that acts as monitoring center via cellular networks. The process of digitizing the water meter does not need to be done by replacing the existing analog water meters. Thus, the investment costs of the water meter digitalization process would be relatively cheaper and it could be a solution for increasing the recording efficiency and accuracy of customer’s water usage data.
... The power consumption of the developed rotary encoder has been decreased by 95.68% of its peak power consumption before applying the switching method. In comparison, the power consumption of the other encoders such as optical encoder is 80 mW [23]. ...
In this study, an angular motion sensing unit using dual complementary Hall-effect
(HE) sensors and interface circuit to reduce the effect of disturbance signals has been
developed. The applied technique reduces the effects of disturbance signals such as strong
electromagnetic field and temperature. The consequence of this technique provides a good
widespread applicability in industrial and domestic applications. The unwanted disturbance
signals are eliminated by analog processing to obtain a clean signal.
... Short Message Service (SMS) has become a communication protocol allowing parties to exchange delay-tolerant short text messages. It is supported by different standards as for example Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) [13] and General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) [14] which is a standard from the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI) on packet data in GSM systems. The system consists of three main components namely: water meter system for measurement and control of water consumption, server application to manage the measurements and prepare invoices and bills and communication medium that is based on the existing GSM networks. ...
The demand for drinking water in the world is growing at a fast pace. Therefore in the next 20-25 years, the demand for water is expected to be 40% higher than current levels, growth in demand exceeding even 50% by 2030 in developing economies [1]. As demand for water increases, public utilities worldwide in this field will be subject to increasing pressure to manage water resources as efficiently as possible. In this context intelligent systems for measuring water consumption are a key element of future water supply systems because they provide information that allows the price of drinking water to be an attractive price for customers. Consequently in the second part of the paper we will briefly present smart water metering systems mentioned by specialty literature in this area. Cererea de apă potabilă pe plan mondial este în creștere într-un ritm rapid. Prin urmare în următorii 20-25 de ani, cererea de apă este de așteptat să fie cu 40% mai mare decât nivelul actual, creșterea cererii depășind chiar 50% până 2030 în economiile în curs de dezvoltare [1]. Deoarece cererea de apă crește, serviciile de utilitate publică din acest domeniu din întreaga lume vor fi supuse unei presiuni tot mai mari pentru a gestiona resursele de apă cât mai eficient cu putinţă. In acest context sistemele inteligente de măsurare a consumului de apă sunt un element-cheie al sistemelor viitoare de alimentare cu apă , deoarece ele oferă informații care permit ca preţul apei potabile să fie un preţ atractiv pentru clienți. Prin urmare în partea a II-a a articolului vom prezenta pe scurt sistemele inteligente de măsurare a consumului de apă menţionate de către literatura de specialitate din acest domeniu. Cuvinte cheie:, sisteme de citire automată a datelor, contorizare inteligentă, tehnologia comunicaţiilor
In this study, an angular motion sensing unit using dual complementary Hall-effect (HE) sensors and interface circuit to reduce the effect of disturbance signals has been developed. The applied technique reduces the effects of disturbance signals such as strong electromagnetic field and temperature. The consequence of this technique provides a good widespread applicability in industrial and domestic applications. The unwanted disturbance signals are eliminated by analog processing to obtain a clean signal. The proposed method is based on four HE sensors in two couples with 180° distance, where the outputs of the each complementary sensor are applied to a differential amplifier. Then, the signal is changed to the logic level. An artificial turbine has been employed to revolve rotating disc in the developed angular motion sensing unit and a common magnet has been used to generate magnetic disturbance. The experimental results show that the proposed angular motion sensing unit is immune to the magnetic disturbance and able to measure the required information such as speed of rotation, direction of rotation and detect the occurred error. The power consumption is also reduced by 95.68% as compared with conventional readout circuits due to the implementation of negative logic and pulse switching technique. Highlights:
