UAV Assisted Automated Remote Monitoring and Control System for Smart Water Bodies

Abstract

Water is a scarce resource and hence it should be used efficiently in all aspects. Water bodies like dams, lakes, ponds play major role in storing and distributing the water in efficient manner. Stored water is used for drinking purpose, agriculture irrigation, electricity generation, etc. Sometimes excess storage of water causes flood during heavy raining season and kills valuable resources including human life. This mandates that the water bodies should be frequently monitored and controlled for the benefits of mankind. Water body monitoring involves the quantity and quality of water stored, input and output water flow through inlet and outlet shutters respectively, condition of the inlet and outlet shutters, condition of the channels carry the water to oceans during flood, etc. Conventional manual monitoring of water bodies consists several disadvantages including high manual overhead, low accuracy and excess time in measurements, high communication delay, high cost, life threatening risks during measurements, etc. The objective of the proposed work is to automatically monitor and control the smart water bodies to sort out the disadvantages of conventional monitoring. The proposed system consists of Remote Monitoring and Control Station (RMCS), Field Control Unit (FCU), Patrol Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (PUAV), different floating sensors like rainfall sensor, water quality sensor, inlet and outlet shutter interfaces, alarms. The proposed system is able to monitor the water body frequently and prepares accurate report that includes quantity of water, rainfall rate, input and output water flow rate, quality of water like existence of any poisonous chemical contents, working condition of the inlet/outlet shutters, etc. This report is quickly sent to the RMCS for further actions. The RMCS can pull the complete report or any particular information on demand. Further the RMCS processes the report to extract the knowledge for further actions like opening/closing shutters, replacing damaged sensors, directing PUAVs to capture the pictures, sending messages to field officials and operators, etc. As a whole, the proposed system significantly reduces the manual overhead, cost, time required to measure/check various factors while increasing the accuracy of measurements and enables the remote monitoring unit to monitor and govern the water body in all aspects.