Leakage Detection and Automatic Billing in Water Distribution Systems Using Smart Sensors

Reading household and industrial meters are essential activities performed by water companies in most developing countries. Meter readings involve the collection of water consumption units, diagnostics, and status data from the meter devices. In Ghana, meter reading officers go from house to house, institutions, organizations, and other consumers to record the water consumed every month. Two main challenges arise from manual water readings: (1) under-reading, which results in undercharging the customer, and (2) over-reading, which results in overcharging the customer. In each case, either the utility company or the customer is affected during the billing processes. This study adopted wireless sensor devices to automatically collect water readings and detect leakages in pipes. The sensors are configured with a set calibration factor to measure water flow readings accurately. We discovered that the sensors could detect leakages in the pipe by analyzing the readings obtained. Our results showed that an automatic water monitoring system accurately measures water consumption. We observed that 20 ml/sec and 30 ml/sec were recorded from the two sensors at low pressures. The volumes recorded were 500 ml/sec at high pressures, indicating that the volume of water increases at high pressures.