An Inductive Sensor for Water Level Monitoring in Tubes for Water Grids

The sensors for monitoring different parameters in smart cities are becoming a hot topic for researchers all around the world. The smart grids are one of the main objectives of the smart city concept. In this paper, we present an inductive sensor for monitoring the water level in tubes for water distribution grids. Different prototypes are proposed and tested. All of the prototypes are composed of two copper coils, which are fed with a sine wave with an amplitude of 3.3V peak-to-peak. The proposed sensor is based on the measurement of the changes in the induced magnetic field when the medium changes. The sensor is placed inside the tube and it is able to detect the amount of water contained in the tube. The prototypes are tested with the tube full of water and the tube empty of water at different frequencies in order to found the best working frequency. Then, more data is gathered with the selected frequencies and different percentages of water amount in the tube. After testing the different prototypes we conclude that the best one is the prototype 4, which presents a voltage variation higher than 1 V. It is formed by two solenoidal coils of 0.4 mm of copper in form of half-circle with 55 spires. This sensor can be used for detecting obstruction in the water distribution network, sewerage, and leaks of water. This sensor can be connected to a node as Arduino Uno in order to transmit the gathered data to the database of the water supplier.