Low-cost internet of things system for water metering in smart campus

Abstract

Internet of things (IoT) technologies are transforming the monitoring of water distribution networks (WDN) and urban water infrastructure (UWI), as well as smart campus infrastructures, which has the same problems as an urban water network, such as leaks, inaccurate readings, and unnecessary expenses. Smart water meters (SWM) represent an economical IoT solution for remotely monitoring system parameters such as flow rate, pressure, and water quality to reduce losses. This paper introduces an IoT-based smart water metering solution employing message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT), long range (LoRa), a middleware for IoT, and low-cost sensors, implemented at the Federal Institute of Para´ıba, Brazil, as an initial effort toward establishing a smart campus. The evaluation of the IoT device showed a measurement performance index (MPI) of 97.83%, with a flow sensor error margin (FS400A) below 2% for calibrated ranges. The quality of the wireless link yielded an average RSSI of-89 dBm and a packet error rate of 0.35%. The IoT system demonstrated potential as a feasible smart campus application