55.
2:: An Internet and Microcontroller-Based Remote
Operation Multi-Sensor System for Water
Quality Monitoring
0. Postolache P. Gir%o
Inst. Telecomunicaqbes Inst. Telecomunicaq6es
EST/IPS ISTAJTL
Seikbal, Portugal Lisboa, Portugal
poctav@alfa.ist.utl.pt psgirao@alfa.ist.utl.pt
Abstract
The paper presents the architecture of a microcontroller-
based multi-sensor able to measure different quantities
used to characterize water quality and, at the same time, to
disseminate data over the Internet. The architecture of the
system includes a sensitive unit (that performs pH,
temperature and turbidity measurements), a data
acquisition, processing and communication unit, (16F877
microcontroller), and a RTL8019 LAN controller. The
system also incorporates GSM communication capabilities
in order to allow stand-alone operation in places such as
river basin waters.
Keywords
Telemetry, Web sensors, Water quality monitoring.
INTRODUCTION
Environment has turned into a major issue in particular
during the last decade. The ozone hole with its
consequences (acid rains, rapid weather changes) and the
increasing levels of pollution all over the world, alerted not
only rulers but mainly the population all over the world,
particularly in developed or under development countries,
to the importance of preserving and improving the
environment. It is generally accepted nowadays that quality
of life depends on many aspects, including environment,
and that growth must take them all into consideration
(sustainable growth). ‘The impact of these preoccupations in
metrology has been and will continue to be extraordinary.
The need for measuring systems, both for soil, water and air
monitoring and for forensic reasons, boosted research and
development in several domains, particularly in sensors.
The demand of portable, easy to operate equipment leads to
electronic equipment based on electric transducers. Also
increasingly demanded is telemetric, stand-alone equipment
for continuous operation, namely for sea and river water
monitoring. By introducing an Internet and microcontroller-
based remote operated multi-sensor-measuring system, the
present paper aims at to contribute to this demand. It is the
first approach to a system to be built and installed in the
near hture for river water quality monitoring in selected
Portuguese rivers.
0-7803-7454-1/02/$17.0002002 IEEE
M. Pereira H. Ramos
Inst. TelecomunicaqBes Inst. Telecomunicaqbes
EST/IPS IST/UTL
Lisboa, Portugal Lisboa, Portugal
joseper@est.ips.pt hgramos@alfa.ist.utl.pt
The solution reported is implemented to maximize the
flexibility of a distributed monitoring system capable of
performing the measurement of water quality both in the
laboratory and in the field (e.g. Tagus River-Portugal).
Water quality parameters now considered are turbidity, pH
and temperature. The system structure offers the possibility
to add, without hard investments, other water quality
measuring capabilities (e.g. conductivity, dissolved
oxygen).
The measurement of the above-mentioned parameters is an
important part of a water quality monitoring system. The
pH of water determines the solubility (amount that can be
dissolved in the water) and the biological availability
(amount that can be utilized by aquatic life) of chemical
constituents, such as nutrients, influencing the growth of
water plants. The two other parameters, turbidity (TU) and
temperature (T), play an important role in water plants life.
Different distributed measurement solutions have already
been reported [l-41 and generally keep separated the
problems related with measurement itself from those
concerning the communication. In this article, we present
elements about water quality parameter measurement and
about a solution for communication between different
measurement nodes or between measurement units and an
advanced control and processing unit (e.g. PC) via Internet.
The proposed solution utilizes a PIC16F877
microcontroller and a RTLSO19 LAN controller in order to
offer the direct connectivity of a multi-sensor unit to the
Internet (normal Internet or wireless Internet) [2-31.
SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
The architecture of the system consists of a measurement
and communication component organized in two
operational blocks: a Web-sensor measurement block and a
Web-sensor communication block.
Web-sensor measurement block
The Web-sensor measurement block represents the main
part of the water quality monitoring system and includes
the sensors, the conditioning circuits and the
microcontroller that performs the acquisition, the
processing of acquired data in order to extract the
numerical value of the measured parameters.
1532
Sensors
The measurement block includes a IS1 pH meter Model 11,
a WQ7700 turbidity sensor from Water Global and a
PtlOOO resistor used as a temDerature sensor.
Web sensor
block
V
...
Web sensor
measurement
block
-igure 1. Web-sensor proposed architectures, A I ant
A2.
The WQ770 is a submersible turbidity meter with the
sensor mounted in a rugged anodized housing and fully
encapsulated, to be used in-situ environmental monitoring.
The probe has a light emitting diode (LED) as light source
and optical lenses that are able to focus light into a dark-
field sample region. Two detectors with limited acceptance
angles collect light: one collects direct light and the other
collects light at 90" to the focused beam. The sensor
operates from battery power and ratio measurements are
computed. The measured light level is converted into an
electrical signal, filtered, resulting in a raw 4-2OmA signal.
The manufacturer guarantees a linearity of f0.05 NTU in
the range 0.1 to 200NTU.
1533
The Model 11 pH sensor used is a field sensor that is
suitable for submersion. It features a recessed probe design
that tends to be self-cleaning even for solutions containing
suspended solids. The reference cell is a patented liquid
junction chemically inert and the pH glass electrode is
made up of a patented material designated Plunger. The
measuring range is 0 to 14 pH with the theoretical slope
provided by the manufacturer of k59.16 mV/pH unit at
25°C.
Referring to the temperature measurement a RTD probe
(PT 1000) is used.
ConditioningCircuits
To obtain pH, temperature and turbidity values, different
conditioning circuits (CCs) are designed and implemented.
A few meters may separate sensors and microcontroller. In
order not to degrade the analog signals output by the
sensors, the transmission between each sensor and the
microcontroller is in current. Thus, the main components of
CCpH, CCT and CCnr conditioning blocks (Figure 1) are the
preconditioning circuits, which adapt sensors outputs to the
inputs of 4-20 mA transmitters, and 4-20mA current loop
receivers.
The pH sensor output impedance is higher than 500 MQ.
Thus, a MAX406 micro-power, precision operational
amplifier is connected to sensor's output for impedance
adaptation purposes. The main features of this operational
amplifier that recommend its use are the low supply current
(less than 1.2pA) and input offset voltage (0.25mV). The
output signal of op amp is directly input to a XTRlOl 4-20
mA two wire transmitter to convert the input voltage
received from the MAX406 into a current corresponding to
pH values (ex.20 mA. for pH=l and 4 mA for pH=ll).
After 4-20 mA transmission, the current signal is converted
near the microcontroller analog input into a voltage (UpH)
included in the 0+5V interval. The current-to-voltage
conversion is made using a RCV420 4-20 mA current loop
receiver.
In what concerns the temperature sensor, the resistance-to-
current features of XTRlOl are used. Thus, using the
PtlOOO together with a XTR101, a 4 to 20 mA current is
obtained for the temperature values included in the 5+3OoC
temperature interval. The 4-20mA current signal is
converted into a voltage, UT,using also a RCV420.
The WQ770 turbidity-sensing unit includes two remote
selectable measuring ranges (O-SONTU, 0- 1000NTU) for
higher sensitivity. In our application (river water), the 4-
20mA WQ770 output for O-5ONTU is normally
recommended. Once again the current to voltage conversion
is performed before microcontroller's input using a
RCV420. The results obtained with this sensor are
presented in Figure 2.
Microcontroller
Voltages Upw, UT and UTu delivered by CCpH, CCT and
CCTU are acquired using the analog input channels
ANO+AN2 of a I'IC16F877 microcontroller. One of
microcontroller's digital outputs, RCO, is used to select the
turbidity sensor operational range (RCO=l for 0-50 NTU,
and RCO=O for 0-1000NTU).
Figure 2. The turbidity transducer characteristic for five
calibration points (TU={O, 20,200,800, 1000).
Referring to the processing component, three blocks are
implemented in the microcontroller to perform the UpHto
pH conversion, UT to temperature conversion and Um to
turbidity conversion. Taking into account the linearity of
the above-mentioned transducers (0.8% for pH transducer,
0.4% for T transducer and 0.9% for TU transducer), a
linear conversion of the acquired voltages is performed.
The characteristics associated to pH, T and TU are
expressed and implemented in the following form:
PH = 'IpH ( T ) ' U p H bpH (1)
T = UT 4-bT (2)
TU=am.UTU+bTU (3)
where the aT=7 "Cllr, bT=O"C, am=293.7 NTUN, b T F -
330 NTU. In the pH case, apH and bpH are temperature
dependent. Thus, a look-up table is used to extract the
temperature corrected pH information. To reduce the
required memory, the table includes the values of apH and
bpHfor temperatures in the 5+30"C interval. In Figure 3 the
evolution of apH and bpH versus temperature is presented.
The information obtained at the numerical conversion
blocks output is used to generate specific alarms ( A p ~ :
pH>>pHnOmI,AT: T>>Tnomal,AT": TU>>TUnOma~) or is
made available to the Word Wide Web.
Web-sensor communication block
The architectures considered to transform the multi-sensor
unit into a Web multi-sensor are:
A l : microcontroller- RS232 - PC - Ethernet controller -
Internet service provider - www
A2: microcontroller - Ethernet controller - Internet service
provider - www.
1534
To publish sensors data pages, both architectures are
considered in two versions, one using a cable connection
between the Ethernet controller and the Internet service
provider (normal Internet connection), and the other using a
GSM to assure that connection (wireless Internet
connection).
apH, b p H
Figure 3. Evolution of apHand bpHcoefficients versus
temperature.
The first architecture, A l , uses the RS232 of the PC to
receive pH, temperature and turbidity values sent by a
MAX232 multi-channel RS232 driverheceiver connected to
microcontroller's USART port. The received data is
processed in LabVIEW and published on the Web using the
Datasocket Transfer Protocol and LabVIEW Web
Publishing capabilities [4-51. Using the LabVIEW Web
publishing tool together with a client Web browser (e.g.
Internet Explorer), the front page of the virtual instrument
implemented on the PC that is RS232 connected to the
microcontroller is published on the Web (Figure 4) and may
be accessed by remote users. The Web page is refreshed
every 10 minutes. However, and since the system is
continuously measuring, if the level of any of the measured
quantities is overcome, the refresh time is reduced up to the
lower limit of 1s [6].
The second architecture, A2, is based on the utilization of
PIC16F877 to implement a microcontroller Web server that
automatically publishes the values of pH, temperature and
turbidity. The microcontroller is characterized by 8Kbx14
words of FLASH program memory, 368x8bytes of Data
Memory (RAM), 256x8 bytes of EEPROM data memory
and interrupt capabilities satisfies the minimum
requirements, in terms of processing capabilities, for a Web
sensor. A critical factor associated with Web pages storage
is microcontroller's memory capacity. A Web server needs
ample storage for Web pages, and the on-chip ROM is
clearly inadequate for this [7]
Figure 4. Architecture A I : Web page.
To overcome this limitation, a 32K EEPROM external
memory (Microchip 24C32.) is included in the system. The
communication between the microcontroller and this
external memory is made using the 12C two wires bi-
directional interface [81. Also connected to the
microcontroller through 12C bus is a real time clock. This
clock is read every time the Web page is refreshed and the
corresponding time published together with the values of
the measured quantities. The Ethernet connection is made
using a Realtek RTL8019 Ethemet controller that includes
the network interface controller, a serializer and a buffer
RAM [91.
The microcontroller drives the Ethernet controller
simulating ISA bus activity. For that purpose, the
microcontroller performs actions such as address and data
lines setting. To implement those actions, 15
microcontroller digital lines are used (MO, RB1 for read
and write outputs, M 2 e R B 7 Ethernet address lines,
RCO+RC7 Ethernet data lines). From the above-mentioned
lines, only the first two are used full time to drive the
Ethernet interface.
The main components necessary to materialize the multi-
Web sensor architecture A2 just described are included in
Microchip MPLAB-ICD and Microchip PICDEM.net.
Figure 5 shows the Web page published using that
architecture.
1535
Multi-web sensor
Water parameters
__I
118 2
Status page
Home Pwe
Figure 5. Architecture A2:Web page.
The software for the automatic generation of the pH,
temperature and turbidity on the Web is developed in PIC C
Compiler.
CONCLUSION
Taking into consideration the application of the telemetric
system to be built, a wireless Internet connection version of
architecture A2 is chosen. In fact, the wide coverage of
GSM services in Portugal makes possible the operation of
mobile communication-based telemetric systems all over
the country and, in particular, in critical points of the most
important Portuguese rivers such as in the Tagus estuary
near Lisbon. Presently, a Siemens M20 GSM cellular
engine is utilized to connect the Ethernet controller to the
Internet service provider. This mobile phone is hlly
controlled by the microcontroller using dedicated
commands. If proved necessary, a GPRS dual mode GSM,
such as Siemens MC35, will replace the M20.
As strength of the proposed solution it can be underlined
the data sensor acquisition (pH, turbidity and temperature
data), linearization and on-line correction (temperature
correction in the pH case) and wireless distribution of the
processed data, making it available to any user on the
World Wide Web.
As already referred, the work here reported represents a
first step in the design and implementation of a stand-alone
Web-based telemetric system for water river quality
monitoring. The final equipment will include several other
sensors to measure namely conductivity, dissolved oxygen,
content of heavy metal ions (lead, copper, mercury, etc).
Presently, we are studying the possibility of integrating
several of these sensors into an integrated tailor-made
circuit. The results will be presented in the near hture.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by Portuguese Science and
Technology Foundation PRAXIS XXI program
FCT/BPD/2203/99 and the Project FCT PNAT/1999
EEV15052. This support is gratefully acknowledged. We
would also like to thank the Centro de Electrotecnia
Te6rica e Medidas Elktricas, IST, Lisboa, for their
important technical support.
REFERENCES
[l] A. Bacciagalupi, A. Bemieri, D. Capriglione, "A Web-
based Network fix Distributed Measurements", Proc.
l l t h IMEKO TC-4 Symposium, pp. 182-185, Lisbon,
Portugal, September 2001.
[2] F. Toran, D. Ramirez, A. E. Navarro, S . Casans, J.
Pelegri, J.M Espi, "Design of a virtual instrument for
water quality monitoring across the intemet", Sensors
and Actuators B, 3766, pp. 1-5, June 2001.
[3] Paul0 Maia Santas and Pedro Silva GirBo, "Telemetry
Using Cellular ]Mobile Communications", Buletinul
1536
Institutului Politehnic din Iasi, Tomul XLV (IL) Fax.
5A, pp. 285-290, Iasi, Romania, November 1999.
[4] National Instruments, "Using LabVIEW with TCP/IP
and UDP", Application Note 160, National Instruments
Corporation Press, July 2000.
[5] National Instruments -"Integrating the Internet into
Your Measurement System - Datasocket Technical
Overview", National Instruments Corporation Press,
November 2000.
[6] 0. Postolache, P. Silva G i r b , H. Geirinhas Ramos, M.
Dias Pereira,' "A Distributed Virtual Instrument for
Indoor Air Monitoring", Proc. ICEMI'2001, Guilin,
China, November 2001.
[7] J. Bentham, "TCP/IP Lean -Web Servers for Embeded
Systems", CMP Books, 2000.
[8] J.Peatman, "Design with PIC Microcontrollers",
Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1997.
[9] Microchip, "PICDEM.net Intemet Solutions",
Microchip Inc. Press, 2001.