RF Communication and IoT Paradigms System Proposal for Effective Consumption and Equity Distribution of Community Water in Developing Countries: A Case Study

Pierre Tsafack,Emmanuel Tanyi,Bruno Allard,Florin Hutu

doi:10.11648/j.ie.20190301.12

Abstract

Water scarcity poses a serious threat to the population in the most areas of developing countries. In addition to that, the traditional manual nearby approach of following up the water distribution network is unable to ensure an effective and equity use of the small water resources available. A dedicated real-time monitoring system based on radio frequency (RF) communication and internet of things (IoT) paradigms is proposed in this paper. This monitoring system is essential and constitutes a proposed solution for the local water management and equity distribution of the available poor water resources. An alert system recalls users to any abnormal water usage to reduce water loss or to check and solve usual leakages. A customer’s water consumption visualization as well as a setting of his desired consumption alert system are performed using a home dashboard; the monitoring of the system by the water utility company is achieved using a web-based system through Thingspeak cloud computing platform. For an immediate and easy local implementation of the prototype, the system technology was chosen in already validated most cases; in other words, Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components were used. For better and optimum results, most dedicated similar COTS components will be selected using the already running systems.

Highlights

IntroductionDespite the constant increasing of the population and the extension of the water distribution systems in most of the developing countries, the main distribution infrastructure (e.g. water tower, diameter of pipes, etc.) have not changed over the years
Despite the constant increasing of the population and the extension of the water distribution systems in most of the developing countries, the main distribution infrastructure have not changed over the years
We focus on the ThingSpeak application program interface (API) which provides simple communication capabilities to objects within the internet of things (IoT) environment, as well as interesting additional applications

Summary

Introduction

Despite the constant increasing of the population and the extension of the water distribution systems in most of the developing countries, the main distribution infrastructure (e.g. water tower, diameter of pipes, etc.) have not changed over the years. In Cameroon which is one of those concerned developing countries, water distribution network (WDN) for instance is not ensured by the utility company right to the customer’s home. They can only install the customer’s water meter at a maximum distance of 50 meters from the main network [2]. The customer has the responsibility to extend the piping from his utility water meter to his premises. This extension of the network is hardly done following regulations and is with poor pipe quality

Objectives

Results

Conclusion