Water Metering System Research Articles

Comparative Analysis of Supervised Classification Algorithms for Residential Water End Uses

AbstractWater sustainability in the built environment requires an accurate estimation of residential water end uses (e.g., showers, toilets, faucets, etc.). In this study, we evaluate the performance of four models (Random Forest, RF; Support Vector Machines, SVM; Logistic Regression, Log‐reg; and Neural Networks, NN) for residential water end‐use classification using actual (measured) and synthetic labeled data sets. We generated synthetic labeled data using Conditional Tabular Generative Adversarial Networks. We then utilized grid search to train each model on their respective optimized hyperparameters. The RF model exhibited the best model performance overall, while the Log‐reg model had the shortest execution times under different balanced and imbalanced (based on number of events per class) synthetic data scenarios, demonstrating a computationally efficient alternative for RF for specific end uses. The NN model exhibited high performance with the tradeoff of longer execution times compared to the other classification models. In the balanced data set scenario, all models achieved closely aligned F1‐scores, ranging from 0.83 to 0.90. However, when faced with imbalanced data reflective of actual conditions, both the SVM and Log‐reg models showed inferior performance compared to the RF and NN models. Overall, we concluded that decision tree‐based models emerge as the optimal choice for classification tasks in the context of water end‐use data. Our study advances residential smart water metering systems through creating synthetic labeled end‐use data and providing insight into the strengths and weaknesses of various supervised machine learning classifiers for end‐use identification.

EXPLORING THE EMPIRICAL EFFICACY OF PREPAID WATER METERS IN A FAILED STATE, A CASE OF HARARE IN ZIMBABWE

This study espouses the diverging interpretations on the essence and effectiveness of prepaid water meters with households who are explicitly citing that the tools do not effectively strike a balance between social parity and institutional sustainability in a failed state. 271 structured questionnaires were administered to Harare residents in enabling the provision of a measurement of the resident’s perceptions regarding the water metering system metering system and descriptive statistical analysis was used to determine the results. Ten interviews were also conducted with key informants based on their expertise as the service providers. Two focus group discussions with two of the civil water organizations that are crucial catalysts between the Harare City Council and Harare residents were conducted. The findings of this study concluded that the effectiveness of prepaid water meters will only be successful with due reflection on all-encompassing stakeholder engagement and pro-poor approaches for sustainable service provision.

Proposing a Water Distribution Network Solution for an Arid Region Using the Criticality Tool

Water is an essential component of our daily life. Water is delivered to our homes through a water distribution system. Various analyses are required to understand how various elements affect the network. We may run many scenarios on the network and examine the results using the Water Gems software. This software also helps to shorten the time it takes to figure out where a pipe has been damaged, allowing for more effective water saving. The analysis is carried out in order to improve the network’s efficiency. Changes in hydraulic parameters, physical parameters, and other variables can be determined using these analyses. The proposed water distribution network is Nimkhedi, Jalgaon. Criticality analysis is a method that analyzes every potential machine breakdown scenario and evaluates how those failures could impact the network overall. Clarifying what may be done to lower the risk connected with each resource can be done by doing a criticality analysis. A versatile tool to assess and determine the most important components of a water distribution network is provided by criticality to the user. The Smart Water Metering System is crucial for consumer convenience and water management.

Анализ факторов, определяющих погрешность расходов с сужающими устройствами на каналах головных насосных станций

In the conditions of increasing scarcity of water resources, the problem of their economy and rational use is of paramount importance. The restructuring of the existing water metering system should be carried out in a comprehensive and step-by-step manner. When accounting for water, the greatest difficulty is the problem of measuring water flow. The paper summarizes and presents the methods of error estimation that allow us to objectively assess the compliance of flow meters with technical conditions at the stages of manufacture, installation and operation. The efficiency of water metering is largely determined by the level of operation of measuring instruments. In this regard, the unification of the process of collecting, processing and presenting information should play an important role. The purpose of the research is to substantiate a mathematical model of the error of flow meters with tapering devices by analogy with the methods regulated in the current regulatory documents.

Is smart water meter temporal resolution a limiting factor to residential water end-use classification? A quantitative experimental analysis

Water monitoring in households provides occupants and utilities with key information to support water conservation and efficiency in the residential sector. High costs, intrusiveness, and practical complexity limit appliance-level monitoring via sub-meters on every water-consuming end use in households. Non-intrusive machine learning methods have emerged as promising techniques to analyze observed data collected by a single meter at the inlet of the house and estimate the disaggregated contribution of each water end use. While fine temporal resolution data allow for more accurate end-use disaggregation, there is an inevitable increase in the amount of data that needs to be stored and analyzed. To explore this tradeoff and advance previous studies based on synthetic data, we first collected 1 s resolution indoor water use data from a residential single-point smart water metering system installed at a four-person household, as well as ground-truth end-use labels based on a water diary recorded over a 4-week study period. Second, we trained a supervised machine learning model (random forest classifier) to classify six water end-use categories across different temporal resolutions and two different model calibration scenarios. Finally, we evaluated the results based on three different performance metrics (micro, weighted, and macro F1 scores). Our findings show that data collected at 1- to 5-s intervals allow for better end-use classification (weighted F-score higher than 0.85), particularly for toilet events; however, certain water end uses (e.g., shower and washing machine events) can still be predicted with acceptable accuracy even at coarser resolutions, up to 1 min, provided that these end-use categories are well represented in the training dataset. Overall, our study provides insights for further water sustainability research and widespread deployment of smart water meters.

An automated water consumption management system with water leak detection using mobile application

The importance of water sustainability has long been recognized across the globe and it is considered as one of the most important commodities that is very essential in all of humanity’s basic functions. In the Philippines or like most in the other nations, in order to control the water supply, most of them relies on reading the water-metering system manually. Wherein this kind of processes is very time consuming and locating where the possible leakage is hard to identify. Due to these reasons, the proponent of this study comes up with an idea to create a solution with these problems. One of the objectives is to develop An Automated Water Consumption Management System with Water Leak Detection Using Mobile Application wherein it can monitor the rate of water-flow in real time basis; can calculate the amount of water consumes; and notify the end user if water leakage exists. These capabilities help the end-user to prevent the high consumption of water due to water leakage and unnecessary use of water. In addition, this study focuses also on controlling the said device (waterflow sensor) manually when a particular leakage exists, and the special features added to the application is that it can send an alert or notification message to the end-user. In terms of design of the project development, the proponents rely on the use of Agile Methodology in order to identify and solve the common problems that will exist on the phase of developing this study.

Development and Implementation of Smart Water Metering System based on Lora Technology

The article presents an overview of traditional water meters in Vietnam, digitizing metrology technologies and wireless data transmission technology for data collection and user applications in smart water metering systems. After that, it is proposed to design a smart wireless water meter module. This paper focuses on designing and implementing a smart water meter to re-use traditional mechanical water meters by designing a smart water metering module attached to the existing meter. This way, it eliminates the costs of investing in flow water meter and influences the old water meter infrastructure system. The contribution of this paper is threefold: (i) Firstly, it proposes wireless data transmission and digitizing metrology technologies suitable for water metering systems in Viet Nam. (ii) Secondly, the proposed smart water meter module designs include hardware, firmwave, and plastic cover. There are two experimental prototypes of the module is introduced in this paper (iii) Lastly, The paper provides a water metering management software model for smart cities. And the overall systems of the proposed platform were built to verify the presented design. To reduce the amount of water leaking or users hacking from outside the meter in the measurement results, the article proposes to design features to alert about: abnormal flow, strong magnetic field influence, and equipment cover being removed. The experimental verification was designed with the Actaris water meter using Hall technology to digitize data and the Itron water meter with digitizing technology using the LC sensor. Besides, the Lora wireless network system is proposed and deployed to verify the water metering management with the advantages of low energy consumption, high security, and strict authentication process. Actual results for the laboratory environment and residential areas show that signal loss (RSSI) and signal noise (SNR) is within the allowable range. In addition, the packet loss rate <1% and average power consumption meter <50uA. Water metering management software is presented to verify the smart city service system.

Development of strategies to reduce, remove and recover microplastics from the whole of water supply cycle

Implementing smart water metering systems has numerous potential benefits for both a utility and its customers. Despite the benefits, implementing smart metering systems also introduces asset anomalies and data errors associated with unusual and abstruse technological aspects of these systems. The various technologies required for each component of the data chain, as well as the multiple interfaces through which the data are filtered, condensed, or altered, impose limitations on the amount and quality of the data that are ultimately made available to the utility. A selected sample of technological aspects of smart metering systems was examined within a holistic framework of risk assessment and components of a generic data chain/pathway. Anomalies were identified that have seldom been addressed in literature before. The perception that implementing smart metering will automatically result in rich data and optimal information, is therefore not necessarily correct. A particular smart metering solution is generally a compromise, because of current technology developments, regulations and the relevance of applicable standards. This ‘bottom-up’ approach used, is technologically agnostic and can also assess future technological developments. Highlighting these technological aspects in this paper facilitates the identification of risk mitigation strategies to reduce or eliminate the impact of the asset anomalies.

A provably secure signcryption with proxy re-encryption for smart water grid network

Smart water grid (SWG) uses smart water metering systems that regularly gathers consumers' water consumption records and sends it to the water supply department. The communication of such information is the cause of concern for data privacy. In this work, we proposed an identity based signcryption with proxy re-encryption for smart water grid (IDSC-PRE-SWG). A proxy located at the cloud is responsible for re-encrypting the signcrypted ciphertext message. Our approach permits the authorised user to decode the ciphertext along with validating the message's source and authenticity. We also demonstrated that our system can be used to safeguard the security of data stored in cloud. The comparison of computational costs in terms of time in milliseconds for each phase of the IDSC-PRE schemes shows that, the proposed approach outperforms the alternative schemes. The simulation study performed with AVISPA tool indicates that IDSC-PRE-SWG is safe in OFMC and CL-Atse backends.

Utilization of water flow for powering the internet-based water metering system household scale

Water is a vital element needed by humans, the use of renewable energy is a concept that is being developed at this time, one of which is the flow of water, electricity generation that utilizes water flow that uses water turbines that are placed in a rapid pipe which then turns the turbine wheel and converts the rotational power into electricity to power an Internet-based water meter system of Things. This research aims to develop PDAM water meters which are currently still analog then developed into digital and can be monitored by the system and utilize the water flow to turn on the whole system. Researchers design a tool that utilizes water flow to activate and store power reserves in the system by utilizing a monitoring system that makes it easy for consumers to find out the amount of water consumption and costs to be paid at intervals of a certain period. This system includes turbines, charging circuits, microcontrollers, and water rate sensors that are developed using the Internet of Things (IoT) and a power supply system in the form of batteries. The battery will charge when the generator reaches a stable condition and will automatically activate when the water flow reaches an unstable condition.

Study on evaluation index system of water flow measuring performance in irrigation district in Tanghe irrigation district in Hebei Province, China

The objective of this study is to evaluate the water metering performance of the irrigation district in Tanghe irrigation district in Hebei Province, China. By review of previous achievements, an evaluation system of 3 primary indicators and 12 secondary indicators was established from three aspects of equipment performance, layout mode, and management. Use these index parameters to measure the water measurement performance of the irrigation area. The performance was classified into four levels according to its performance and the evaluation criteria were determined. Finally, taking Tanghe irrigation district as an example, the basic data of the irrigation district was investigated to evaluate the water metering performance of the irrigation district. The evaluation result shows that the water metering performance of this irrigation district belongs to the third grade, which indicates that the irrigation water metering system is largely complete and meets the water measuring demand of the irrigation district. The evaluation index system and evaluation method of the irrigation district are feasible and have reference value for the performance evaluation of the irrigation district in the future.

Modified Design of Water Metering System

The analog flow meter has been widely used in Regional Water Supply Company (PDAM) to measure the amount of water flow consumed by PDAM customer. This analog flow meter has an inadequacy in converting water consumed into rupiah billing system. In this research, a modified design of water metering system was proposed. A system involving water flow sensor to detect water flow velocity in the form of pulses as the inputs of microcontroller was analyzed. The output of the flow sensor will be converted as information of how much water consumed and how much money (in Rupiah Currency) should be paid to the water company. These outputs will be delivered through SMS using SIM 800L. The result of the experiments show that the proposed modified design of the water metering system could fulfill the standard of the metering system.

A Smart Water Metering System Based on Image Recognition and Narrowband Internet of Things

A Smart Water Metering System Based on Image Recognition and Narrowband Internet of Things

IoT based Water Management System

The conventional technique of measuring the quality of water is to gather the samples manually and send it laboratory for analysis, but this technique is time overwhelming and not economical. Since it is not feasible to take the water sample to the laboratory after every hour for measuring its quality. The water quality measuring system can measure the essential qualities of water in real time. The system consists of multiple sensors to measure the standard of water, microcontroller and wifi modem to send the information to the watching center. It's a true time system which is able to endlessly measure the standard of water and can send the measured values to the watching center when each predefinedtime.
 During the past decade, water needs have increased unpredictably in India. Increasing demand of water supply has become a major challenge for the world. Wasteful usage of water, climatic changes and Urbanization has further depleted the resource. Conservation and management of the resource must be given utmost importance. In this paper, we present an IoT design for water monitoring and control approach which supports internet based data collection on real time bases. This paper proposes a system that addresses new challenges in the water sector -flow rate measuring and the need for a study of the supply of water in order to curb water wastage and encourage its conservation. We also measure the quality of water distributed to every household by deploying pH and conductivity sensors. The traditional water metering systems require periodic human intervention for maintenance making it inconvenient and often least effective. This system is designed to overcome for shortcoming of the existing models for a ubiquitous usage of wireless systems for smart quality monitoring and communicate datawirelessly.

Automation of water distribution management during the reconstruction of main irrigation canals

Canal automation allows increasing the efficiency of projects for the reconstruction and construction of irrigation systems. Modern technological and technical advances make it possible to regulate the flow of irrigation water at all levels of the system more accurately. The basic requirements for water accounting and water metering systems implemented on irrigation systems are applicable only to the conditions of water distribution static regulation. This is primarily due to the use of water-accounting and water-measuring devices developed and used in conditions of steady-state water flow, when there is an unequivocal relationship between the depth and water flow on the rise and on the decline of levels. Using world experience in connection with new achievements in the field of management theory research, it is necessary to consider how and when to implement automation of water distribution management in the context of reconstruction and construction of irrigation main canals. In addition, practical recommendations on other aspects of channel automation should be taken into account, including the dynamic nature of the system; irrigation infrastructure survey; use of SCADA-systems; improving the concept of water distribution management using automatic control methods.

AUTOMATED WATER METERING SYSTEM

Nowadays, water scarcity and excess water wastage pose a serious threat to the Indian Population. A major reason for this is the improper, tedious and inconvenient methods of monitoring its usage. Methods used currently not only require a fair amount of manual labour but also has a high scope of errors and negligence. These methods are not feasible and valid for a growing economy. A feasible solution to this problem could be the provision of real-time monitoring, wherein a consumer can monitor their usage in real-time and take necessary steps to prevent said wastage. IoT water meters can help in such a scenario. Using automated monitoring through IoT we can enable a User/Consumer to monitor their water usage and consumption in real time and be mindful of it. This Paper introduces an Automated Water Metering System using Arduino which monitors water usage in real time and can create a consumer profile in two ways viz Prepaid and Postpaid. Using these profiles, we can further generate bill for the user based on their usage. This user data is stored on the cloud and with the help of an online dashboard can be accessed at anytime from anywhere. This system will use the existing Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) for sending data to the cloud.

Measuring water use, conservation, and differences by gender using an inexpensive, high frequency metering system

We present an inexpensive, open source, water metering system for measuring water use quantity and behavior at high temporal frequency. We demonstrate this technology in two high-traffic, public restrooms at Utah State University before and after installing high efficiency, automatic faucets and toilet flush valves. We also integrated an inexpensive sensor to count user traffic. Sensing restroom visits and water use events allowed us to identify fixture malfunctions, average water use per person, variability in use by fixtures (faucets versus urinals and toilets), variability in use by fixtures compared to manufacturer specifications, gender differences in use, and the difference in use after retrofit of the restrooms with high efficiency fixtures. The inexpensive metering system can help institutions remotely measure and record water use trends and behavior, identify leaks and fixture malfunctions, and schedule fixture maintenance or upgrades, all of which can ultimately help them meet goals for sustainable water use.

Design of IPv6 Network enabled Smart Water Flow Meter System for India

Water is one of the major requirements for human survival. During the past decade, water needs have risen exponentially to an unprecedented scale in India. The rapid urban development, increasing human population, climate change and wasteful usage have led to severe water shortages. The solution lies largely in areas of effective mechanisms for conservation, distribution, efficient use and management of this resource. Ensuring access to safe and clean water is another issue that requires attention. In this paper, we present an IPv6 network connected design for real-time water flow metering and quality monitoring system. Our prototype implementation uses the emerging HTTP-compatible CoAP based monitoring and control approach for seamless web integration, thus supporting internet based data collection. The system addresses new challenges in the water sector - ease of billing, fair billing and the need for a study of supply versus consumption of water in order to create awareness to curb water wastage and encourage its conservation. The traditional water metering systems require periodic manual intervention for both metering and maintenance making it inconvenient and often least effective. Shortcomings of the existing models call for a ubiquitous usage of wireless systems for smart water flow metering and quality monitoring. We propose to do this with the aid of CC2538 motes that monitor the water consumption and communicate the data to a gateway wirelessly so that the data can

Smart meters for enhanced water supply network modelling and infrastructure planning

To design water distribution network infrastructure, water utilities formulate daily demand profiles and peaking factors. However, traditional methods of developing such profiles and peaking factors, necessary to carry out water distribution network modelling, are often founded on a number of assumptions on how top-down bulk water consumption is attributed to customer connections and outdated demand information that does not reflect present consumption trends; meaning infrastructure is often unnecessarily overdesigned. The recent advent of high resolution smart water meters allows for a new novel methodology for using the continuous ‘big data’ generated by these meter fleets to create evidence-based water demand curves suitable for use in network models. To demonstrate the application of the developed method, high resolution water consumption data from households fitted with smart water meters were collected from the South East Queensland and Hervey Bay regions in Australia. Average day (AD), peak day (PD) and mean day maximum month (MDMM) demand curves, often used in water supply network modelling, were developed from the herein created methodology using both individual end-use level and hourly demand patterns from the smart meters. The resulting modelled water demand patterns for AD, PD and MDMM had morning and evening peaks occurring earlier and lower main peaks (AD: 12%; PD: 20%; MDMM: 33%) than the currently used demand profiles of the regions’ water utility. The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of widespread smart water metering systems for enhanced water distribution infrastructure planning and management as well as the benefits to customers.

Energy Autonomous Wireless Water Meter with Integrated Turbine Driven Energy Harvester

Accurate meter reading is the fundamental task of the home water system for the handling of payments. Meters need to be read correctly, to avoid an effect of adding events that increase unnecessary cost and create customer dissatisfaction. This paper presents a fully integrated wireless, energy autonomous water metering system based on the European Standard EN 13757 "Communication systems for meters and remote reading of meters". The system can be used in multiple water metering scenarios. No maintenance will be required and the system will provide precise and secure data transmission as well as timely and accurate recording of the consumption of water. The identification of any leakages will be improved through the analysis of the actual quantity supplied and recorded by the meters. The system is powered by an energy harvester, based on a water driven turbine wheel that is directly coupled to an electromagnetic energy transducer. The power delivered by the generator is dependent of the amount of flowing water and the pressure in the water pipes. Therefor the power is commonly non-continuous, fluctuant and unstable in the voltage amplitude. To be able to report the meter readings at all times, the system needs to be powered not only in times when the energy harvester delivers energy. Therefor an energy buffer, that stores the harvested energy, is installed to compensate the energy requirement between the actual generator output and the energy consumption of the application. Besides a complete system overview, the presentation will focus on the power management and energy aware battery charging circuitry. The design, fabrication, measuring results and the preparations for field tests in rural and urban environment will be presented and discussed.