IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ECONOMICAL IoT-BASED LIQUID TANK CONTROL SYSTEM TO SUPPORT ONLINE PROCESS CONTROL PRACTICUM

Due to the pandemic era, many courses in higher education were conducted online to minimize the risk of disease transmission. For several engineering courses that contain practical material, an appropriate method is required to deliver practicum learning materials online to maintain the quality of these courses. Therefore, in this paper, the implementation of an economical IoT-based (Internet of Things) liquid tank control system was introduced to support the online practicum class. The tank system design has a height of 120 cm and a diameter of 50 cm. The tank features a valve, flowmeter, and an 18 LPM water pump. The control systems, consisting of Arduino Uno, an ultrasonic sensor, and a stepper motor, was run on the MATLAB Simulink application. IoT systems can be deployed using the TeamViewer app. After running the simulation, it was found that the lower setpoint change did not make significant changes in the process and produced the same curve shape as the steady state. The curves at steady state and during processing are not much different for the disturbance change. The error can be calculated using IAE and ITAE. The performances of the control system with IAE and ITAE values are 1.460 and 915.122 for setpoint change, respectively. For disturbance change, the IAE and ITAE values are 0.877 and 490.446, respectively. This system can help students better understand the industry 4.0 concept and allow them do practical work effectively from home at a low cost.