Design of a Remote Real-time Groundwater Level and Water Quality Monitoring System for the Philippine Groundwater Management Plan Project

Recent technological advances allow us to utilize remote monitoring systems or real-time access of data. While the use of remote monitoring systems is not new, there are still numerous applications that can be explored and improved on, one such is groundwater level and quality monitoring. In the Philippines, the extraction of groundwater for both domestic use and industrial use are manually monitored by the government’s concerned agency and is done at least once per year. With this current setup, the real and significant state of the groundwater is not reflected in a way that is most valuable to the government and to the community. This project aims to design and develop a remote real-time groundwater level and quality monitoring system. It is intended to provide quantitative data for policy makers in addressing recurrent water shortages in the Philippines. This paper discusses the designed system composed of three modules: power module, sensors and control, and data visualization. These three modules provide real-time data from far-flung locations while being energy-sustainable. Dry runs of the system in a controlled environment yielded excellent results — average data accuracy of 96.63% for all six (6) groundwater quantity and quality parameters namely: pH, temperature, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity, and static water level (SWL), and 90.63% data transmission reliability. Initial deployment of the system on one of the groundwater monitoring well in Metro Manila, Philippines returned a 91.16% data transmission reliability. The system is currently installed in 20 groundwater monitoring sites all-over the Philippines and is scheduled for more installations

Software and Data Visualization Platform for Groundwater Level and Quality Monitoring System

Rapid urbanization and increasing population come with the increased extraction and use of groundwater resources. To track the effect of these activities on groundwater level and quantity; a system for real-time monitoring is devised. In this paper; we present a software system design that enables a locally-developed groundwater level and water quality monitoring hardware setup to gather water quality parameter data; send it to a cloud server; and present organized data for better visualization. The hardware setup consists of an Arduino microcontroller. Upon deployment; the hardware setup is linked to an Android application that connects to the web-based platform

Development of an Active Balance Training Platform for a Gamified Physical Rehabilitation

Balance problems affect a large number of people, especially stroke survivors, and can manifest even in simple activities of their daily lives. This paper will present the development of a gamified balance training system by incorporating active motor control on a balance board and providing variable in-game settings to allow individualized therapy. Both hardware and game settings can be customized to match the balance capacity of the patient. Any movement of the balance board corresponds to the movement of the game avatar and is tracked by an inexpensive Inertial Measurement Unit, the MPU6050. A stepper motor is used to implement the effect of having an active control of the balance board. Hardware settings that can be customized are the maximum sway angle and sway stability of the balance board. While in-game settings that can be adjusted are duration, intensity, bias, limits, and assistance level. The reliability of the IMU measurements are proven even after 5 hours of continuous use

Design and Implementation of AquoSense - a Water Quality Sensor System

Aquaculture has become an effective breeding and farming method for aquatic plants and animals, but is also rendered vulnerable by increasing weather fluctuations and unexpected environmental changes that affect water quality. Real-time detection of fluctuations in water quality parameters is important for executing appropriate and timely operational responses to minimize losses, say, due to fish kills or a collapse of a harvest cycle. This necessitates continuous monitoring which, at present, is mostly done manually, aperiodically, inconsistently, haphazardly, and oftentimes reactively. To address these pain points, the proponents have designed and developed AquoSense - a low-cost and easy-to-use water quality sensor system. AquoSense can be automated or pre-programmed to regularly measure parameters such as pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), electrical conductivity (EC), and temperature; and monitor the derived parameters salinity, total dissolved solids (TDS), and specific gravity (SG). Tests done for pH and EC sensor probes revealed that it can be comparable to a commercial-grade water quality measuring device. AquoSense can store data locally, and/or transmit these to a local mobile device or to the internet cloud. AquoSense comes in two versions: handheld and submersible, and both have been tested in the laboratory and deployed in aqua field conditions

Data and network communications protocol motherboard using reconfigurable hardware

The introduction of reconfigurable devices such as the field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) have provided electrical, electronics and computer engineers with a versatile and cost-effective method of designing circuits, developing devices and implementing electronic, communications, computer and other related systems. This paper presents the use of FPGA in the development of a mother board to introduce the concepts of data and network communications protocol through different interfaces such as VGA, PS/2, serial communications and parallel communications. Moreover, since it is FPGA-based, this motherboard can be reconfigured or expanded to perform other protocols making it open to a lot of possibilities

Field Programmable Gate Array Implementation of a Motherboard for Data Communications and Networking Protocols

Reconfigurable devices, such as the field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), have provided electrical, electronics and computer engineers with a versatile and costeffective platform for designing circuits, developing devices and implementing electronic, communications, computer and other related systems. Presented in this paper is the use of FPGA in the development of a motherboard to introduce the concepts of data and network communications protocol through different interfaces. Some of the protocols implemented are VGA, PS/2, serial communications and parallel communications. Since the motherboard is FPGA-based, it can be reconfigured to perform other protocols making it open to a lot of possibilities

Remote and Real-time Sensor System for Groundwater Level and Quality

The increasing demand for freshwater supply in the Philippines forces unsustainable extraction and unintentional contamination of the groundwater reservoirs. It is thus imperative that the groundwater sources be monitored for water level and quality. The Philippines has groundwater monitoring wells strategically installed in locations identified as critical areas. Accessibility of location and high cost of provisions and logistics prevent proper maintenance and continuous monitoring of these groundwater wells. This project addresses these by deploying a remote real-time groundwater level and quality sensor system. The groundwater wells initially monitored are located over three sites in Metro Manila, namely, Malabon, Marikina, and Alabang. Each site has a sensor system that collects and transmits seven parameters related to static water level and water quality and the deployed module\u27s power status. With a solar charging component, the deployed module can power itself for at least 6 months with minimal maintenance. The system delivers the maximum transmission reliability of 92% in the field with hourly sending rates and more than satisfies the required one data set per day minimum by the funding agency

Design of an Automatic Temperature Screening System for Elevated Skin Temperature with Information Logging Capability

With the outbreak of the highly-contagious SARS-CoV-2 virus and its accompanying coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many government agencies adopted contact tracing to measure and mitigate the spread of the virus. Contact tracing aims to keep track of the individual\u27s movements and activities and identify all those who they come in contact with. This study is focused on designing a cost-effective, efficient, and accurate system for information logging and temperature screening with a complementary contact tracing feature. The system provides an automated, safe, and physical-distance-aware alternative to manual temperature measurement and data logging practiced by most commercial establishments. The system uses an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi, along with infrared temperature sensors utilizing proper calibration methods to yield temperature reading difference of 0.1 - 0.3 degree-Celsius taken at 10 cm distance. User identification is done by reading either specifically-registered RFID tags or system-generated identity-QR code. Temperature is subsequently read, date and time stamped, and logged into the system. This allows for automated and exact association of the user logged information with their corresponding temperature

Design of an Automatic Temperature Screening System for Elevated Skin Temperature with Information Logging Capability

With the outbreak of the highly-contagious SARS-CoV-2 virus and its accompanying coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many government agencies adopted contact tracing to measure and mitigate the spread of the virus. Contact tracing aims to keep track of the individual\u27s movements and activities and identify all those who they come in contact with. This study is focused on designing a cost-effective, efficient, and accurate system for information logging and temperature screening with a complementary contact tracing feature. The system provides an automated, safe, and physical-distance-aware alternative to manual temperature measurement and data logging practiced by most commercial establishments. The system uses an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi, along with infrared temperature sensors utilizing proper calibration methods to yield temperature reading difference of 0.1 - 0.3 degree-Celsius taken at 10 cm distance. User identification is done by reading either specifically-registered RFID tags or system-generated identity-QR code. Temperature is subsequently read, date and time stamped, and logged into the system. This allows for automated and exact association of the user logged information with their corresponding temperature