Internet of things (IoT)-based on real-time and remote 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 utilizes fuel in steam production in Arusha-Tanzania, where fuel data conditions such as temperature, pressure, discharge, fuel level, and gas leakage with humidity were a challenge to monitor, 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 the GSM module was employed to send fuel data messages to the operator’s phone. An AT mega 328 microcontroller was used to process and analyse 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. A pressure of 0.1psi, a fuel temperature of 120 ℃, and 80% of humidity, the system notifies the operator by an alert message to check the injector pressure and if the fuel–air mixture is perfect. In addition, these data were observed on the 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.