AUTOMATIC WATER LEAK DETECTION USING IOT

Neelima K1 ,Akhila MV2 ,Bhanuprakash Reddy V3,Prathyusha Naidu V4 ,Somasundar C5

1
(Electronics and communication, SVEC, Tirupathi, India,neelimakoppala05@gmail.com)

2
(Electronics and communication, SVEC, Tirupathi, India, maddisettyvakhila@gmail.com)

3
(Electronics and communication, SVEC, Tirupathi, India,bhanur26@gmail.com)

4
(Electronics and communication, SVEC, Tirupathi, India,prathyuhsavelakaturi@gmail.com)

5
(Electronics and instrumentation, SVEC, Tirupathi, India,somasundar.84@gmail.com)

ABSTRACT: Water leakage is one of the major problems in the industry .It is the world's most
precious resource but it is the one which is almost universally mismanaged. According to UN
assessment, by 2020 around two-thirds of the population will have insufficient of water supply. So, it
is necessary for developing better methodologies to monitor the water leakage in the industry i.e., in
underground pipes, in systems, in pipes etc,. In order to find the leakage of water we need to monitor
the system continuously in real time. It is difficult to check the underground leaks in olden days and
now there are some technologies like sonic leak- detection equipment .However, it has been unable to
meet the demands of water leakage monitoring today. The benefit of the leak detection is to prevent
the further long term damage to the industry. But by using this IOT based water leak detecting
equipment it is very easy to detect the exact location of the leakage. It mainly uses NI my Rio which
is used to monitor the system whether a hole is present or not in the pipe using the data collected from
the ultrasonic sensor. A specific program is embedded into the rio by using the LABVIEW software.
So by using this setup we can easily detect the underground or any water leaks in the pipe.

KEYWORDS-LABVIEW, my RIO, Ultrasonic sensor, pipes

I. INTRODUCTION

Water leakage is one of the major problems in the industry .It is the world's most precious
resource but it is the one which is almost universally mismanaged. According to UN assessment,
by 2020 around two-thirds of the population will have insufficient of water supply. According to
the United States Geological Survey (USGS), in industries water is used for fabricating,
processing, washing, diluting, cooling, or transporting a product. It is also used in smelting
facilities, petroleum refineries, and also in industries producing chemical products, food, and
paper products. So, it is necessary for developing better methodologies to monitor the water
leakage in the industry i.e., in underground pipes[1-5], in systems, in pipes etc. There are many
causes and threats due to water leakage, mainly the industrial equipment get rusted easily due to
water leakage which in turn damage the function machine and continues leakage of water leads to
wastage and stray electric currents from underground field which causes short circuit. In order to
find the leakage of water we need to monitor the system continuously in real time. It is difficult to
check the underground leaks in olden days and now there are some technologies like sonic leak-
detection equipment .However, it has been unable to meet the demands of water leakage
monitoring today. The benefit of the leak detection is to prevent the further long term damage to
the industry. But by using this IOT based water leak detecting equipment it is very easy to detect
the exact location of the leakage once it has been fixed .Any leakage in the pipe or through the
system can be easily detected and the exact location information is given to us. It uses some
sensors and the cost of the equipment is also low which meet the present demands of the industry.
Not only in industries but also the water supply pipes leakages in the city can be easily detected
and also the exact location information is given by this equipment. So, if any hole is present in the
pipe can be detected by the variations in the data obtained from the ultrasonic sensor and it is
given to the myRIO[9] which is used to process according to the labview program dumped into
the myrio and in this paper we are going to discuss about how to detect hole.

II. BLOCKDIAGRAM

LABVIEW
PROGRAMMING

Power supply National instruments

COMPUTER

(OUTPUT
NI my RIO
Ultrasonic STATUS)
sensor

Pipe

Fig 1 Block diagram

In the block diagram we use the national instruments myRIO module which consists of various
features. The myRIO module is connected to various software and physical peripherals as shown in
Fig 1. The power supply will always be given to the myRIO and cannot be switched off at any
circumstances. Then the ultrasonic sensor collects the data by transmitting and receiving sound
signals. First before starting with the complete setup, the ultrasonic sensor is checked if it supports the
myRIO module and then setup the whole project. When we consider the software part of the proposed
system the LabVIEW program has been written for the detection of hole and will be dumped on to the
NI myRIO which in turn run the system for the needful purpose.

LABVIEW SOFTWARE:

LabVIEW[3] uses a graphic interface that enables different elements to be joined together to provide
the required flow. It is essentially an environment that enables programming in G – this is a graphical
programming language created by National Instruments Nowadays, G can be used for automated test
applications, general data acquisition, programming FPGAs, etc. However as the software has
developed, the term LabVIEW is now synonymous with the G language. It also provides a host of
other facilities including debugging, automated multithreading, application user interface, hardware
management and interface for system design. In this way, LabVIEW acts as a portal for a variety of
facilities bring them together under a single element that is easy to manage.

My RIO:

myRIO[4] is a real time embedded for evaluation. It was introduced by National Instruments. We can
use it to develop the systems which require on board FPGA and microprocessor. LabVIEW is
required to program it. Using this device, it is quite easy for the students to design complicated
systems and to solve real life problems quite efficiently and quickly. It processing speed is almost ten
times of the standard general micro-controllers and microprocessor. We can us this device in the
systems where there is a need of quick responses e.g. CNC machines, two wheeled self balancing
robots, robots performing different human operations. myRIO has thirty four (34) pins in total, each
having different functionality.

ULTRASONIC SENSOR:

The ultrasonic sensor[2] uses sonar to determine the distance to an object. Here’s what happens: The
transmitter (trig pin) sends a signal: a high-frequency sound. When the signal finds an object, it is
reflected and the transmitter (echo pin) receives it. The time between the transmission and reception
of the signal allows us to know the distance to an object. This is possible because we know the
sound’s velocity in the air.
 III. Working principal

The pipes may not be linear and it may be having many bends so an ultrasonic sensor[3] is connected
across the joint of the pipe depending upon the length of the pipe and number of joints the usage of
the sensors also increases. A labview program is developed in such a way that if the value obtained is
greater than or less than the specified value it indicates a status that there is a hole or else no hole.

And this program is embedded into the myRIO[4,5] and the ultrasonic sensor is connected to it .So, it
always monitor the readings that are obtained from the ultrasonic sensor and compare by the program
and if any hole is present it sends the status to the system as output. And the person an easily detects
from which sensor the output is obtained and checks at that position if any leakage is present or not
and if present necessary steps are taken to stop it and reduce the damage that can be occurred due to
the leakage. The working principal is shown in form of flow chart in fig2.

Labview

Ultrasonic MyRIO
sensor

Yes Flow
No
>x

Console output

FIG 2 FLOW CHART

IV. RESULTS AND DISUSSIONS

The setup of the whole system:

 The output status in the system when there is no hole in the pipe:

The output status in the system when there is a hole in the pipe:

V. CONCLUSION

The system as discussed above is working accordingly as shown in the result part. It detects if there is
any leakage in the pipe due to the presence of the hole. If the hole is present the ultrasonic sensor
senses it and the data is given to myRIO where it process and displays the status of the pipe. By using
this setup we can easily detect the leakages in the pipe with low cost and it can be easily maintained
once it has been set up. Furthermore this can be extendable not only for water leakage but also to
detect any chemical leak[6] or as a fluid leak detector. All this can be done by using the same setup

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