IoT-based on boiler fuel monitoring system: A case of Raha Beverages company limited, Arusha-Tanzania

Abstract

RAHA Beverages Company (RABEC) is one of the banana wine production companies that utilize fuel in steam production in Arusha-Tanzania where fuel data conditions like temperature, pressure, discharge, fuel level, and gas leakage with humidity were a challenge to monitor them which provoked boiler malfunction and plant breakdown. Today, RABEC manually uses a dropping stick into the fuel tank to monitor fuel data conditions which is time consuming and gives inaccurate readings, inefficiency, fuel economy discrepancy, and accidents. This study aimed to design and develop an IoT-based fuel monitoring system. The flow meter, ultrasonic level, thermistor fuel temperature, humidity, and pressure sensors were used to gather fuel information where GSM module was employed to send fuel data messages to the operator’s phone. An AT mega 328 microcontroller was used to process and analyze the fuel data and send them to the Thing Speak IoT platform using Wi-Fi connectivity. The results showed that when the fuel level was less than the threshold value, an operator was alerted by a refilling message via GSM technology. At 0.1Psi pressure, fuel temperature of 120℃, and 80% humidity, the system notifies the operator by an alert message to check injector pressure and if the fuel-air mixture was perfect. In addition, these data were observed on LCD and ThingSpeak webpage. To conclude, the developed system proved the best performance with a 99.98% of success rate with high accuracy, security, and efficiency rate compared to the current monitoring system