IoT-based Water Flow Estimation using Multi-Modal Data

This paper presents an Internet of Things (IoT)enabled system that utilizes machine learning (ML) techniques to estimate the water flow in pipelines based on multi-modal sensor data. Traditional methods of water flow monitoring, mainly digital water flow meters, are prohibitively expensive, making largescale deployments challenging. To address this, an alternative has been proposed that leverages the correlation between water flow rate, motor current consumption, and pipeline pressure. Current consumption data of water motors has been integrated with pipeline pressure data to develop ML-based solutions that estimate the value of water flow without directly measuring it. The proposed approach enables digital flow monitoring at a fraction of the cost of conventional digital flow meters while offering high time granularity and accuracy, making it a scalable and practical solution for smart water management in diverse settings. The system’s robustness has been demonstrated by testing the model against erasures in the data.