AquOculus: A Cost-effective Advanced Metering Infrastructure for Urban Water Distribution Systems

Water consumption Automated Meter Reading (AMR) devices are fundamental to achieving sustainable management in Water Distribution Systems (WDS). However, available solutions are still relatively expensive, and don't feature adequate and synchronized network throughput to attain Leakage Detection and Localization (LDL). As a consequence, AMR installation isn't extended in most cities. As an alternative, we propose the so-called AquOculus Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system, intended to be a cost-effective solution. This article presents the first results obtained while developing the embryonic AquOculus AMR prototype, consistent with Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 3. It was based on an ESP32 microcontroller and communicated the correct consumed water volume to a remote application via Wi-Fi. An ordinary water meter was leveraged as the main reading instrument, coupled with the developed optoelectronic pulse counter. It doesn't require specific color, metallic, or magnetic parts on the monitored indicator, applying to a wider variety of water meter models. As the water volume counting is indirect, the measurement relies on the factory-calibrated water meter; so the initial validation setup was very simple, using a hairdryer to move the water meter mechanism. Sunlight sensitivity was observed, and the sensor positioning process was demanding. These issues were figured out and discussed for future work. Despite the TRL achieved, this article also addresses the main steps towards the complete AquOculus system. The cost-effective characteristics are expected to boost further studies to allow massive installations by water distribution companies. The developed software repository link was provided for reproducibility.