Design and Implementation of Water Quality Tracking System using Wireless Sensor Network

Water is essential for life as it is a major life sustaining liquid all living things need. Humans and other living creatures must ingest water for survival. Sources of drinking water in Nigeria include rivers and streams, lakes, springs, rainwater, groundwater from boreholes, tap water from authorities where water utility companies are still functional. The source of drinking water is very important as water meant for drinking may contain elements that could be dangerous to human health. Despite NAFDAC efforts to control adulterated products and control quality standards, the continuous confiscation of different products of which drinking water products is also included is a clear message that a lot still have to be done to monitor and track the water quality of water company products. This research work hopes to bridge these gaps of providing regular information of water quality details of any water company by designing a water quality tracking system with wireless sensor network (WSN) capability for remote tracking water production system from water related products so that these data cannot be tempered with. The hardware design involves the design of the sensor nodes, processor, communication and WSN architecture. The program for the sensor node processor stage and base station receiver processor was written in Arduino program. The sensor outputs were connected to the Arduino microcontroller to convert their analog output to digital information. The Arduino was connected to the LoRa transceiver module. After connection of all stages the system was powered and relevant tests were performed. Results indicate that 80% of the average borehole water sample pH levels meet the international standard. The average TDS levels for both the borehole water (135.75ppm) and the sachet water (142.67ppm) pass (100%) the WHO maximum of 500ppm. Recommendations were made for future work.