IoT application for water tank quality and level monitoring system: case study of Kigali City

Abstract

Water is life, and all humans require it to survive, some uses of water include drinking, cooking, cleaning, and sanitary purposes. In regions of under development countries, sometimes happen water scarcities caused by climate change or long sunny periods, breaks of water pipelines, mal functioning water treatment plants and increased water demand in different parts. These reasons negatively affect functions which need regular access to water and often lead to fails to deliver on time their outcomes. That is why it is critical to keep water in the tanks and to monitor them. Based on an IoT monitoring system, this research project is deploying a solution (hardware, software, and communications) that aims to keep monitoring water tanks in the region. The system which keeps on communication the statuses of water tanks in terms of water level, water quality by measuring the acidity, basicity, dust in water tank, and make the notification by indicating the locations of the tanks. Sensory parts comprise ultrasonic sensor, Turbidity, TDS (total dissolved solids) and pH. The design prototype use Arduino Uno microcontroller for processing data from sensors and use SIM808 GSM/GPRS/GPS sensor for transmitting those processed data to the cloud-ThingSpeak application to transmit data through API to ThingSpeak that stores and analyses data captured from the water tanks. Based the methodology used, data study, and analysis, the system demonstrates its effectiveness in providing water access to a diverse range of people and functions.