Industrial-based GSM water leakage detection, monitoring, and controlling system: a case of North Rift Valley Water Agency in Kenya

Abstract

The current system for detecting and monitoring water leaks in Kenyan industries is manual and costly. Despite emerging technological trends, many industries lack automated systems to detect, monitor, and control water leakage due to high maintenance and installation costs. This study aimed to develop an automatic, remote, real-time detection, monitoring, and control of water leaks in North Rift Valley Water Works Agency. The system is made up of two nodes, one at the source and another at the destination or tap. The two nodes are made up of an ESP32 Microcontroller, which is used to control all the connected components. The ESP32 Microcontroller was efficient due to its ability to provide WI-FI. Aside from the solenoid valve, which was used to turn the water flow on or off in the event of leaks, the system also includes the FY-201 water flow sensor, which was used to gauge the amount of water flowing through the pipe. Water leakage is detected when the water passing through the two sensors differs slightly, indicating that a water leakage has just occurred. Thing Board, an IoT-based platform used to monitor and visualize data from various connected devices, was used for real-time monitoring, visualization, and control. The system administrator could log into and manage the system by remotely turning the water leaks on and off from their phone. The database used was MySQL DB, and a system was created using C programming language, the Arduino Integrated Development Environment, HTML, and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). The developed system was tested with different water service providers, including Eldoret Water and Sanitation Company, and the results show that the system responds positively to water leakage parameters. The developed system could monitor water leakages in real-time with the two nodes interacting by sharing information via the server and communicating via WI-FI enabled by the ESP 32 Microcontroller. With new technological trends, such as the Internet of Things, these microcontrollers will facilitate faster adoption in industrial projects. The benefits include that a system administrator can control the system remotely without physically switching the solenoid valve on or off. It is also lower in cost compared to other tariffs. The system can be installed in hazardous areas, such as valleys and mountains, making it attractive. Future research suggests more investigation into identifying leaks at particular points along water pipes by integrating with the Global Positioning System (GPS) to determine their precise location.