Telemetry Systems for Irrigation Canals:An Academic Researcher’s Perspective

Symposium on Telemetry Systems for Water Management

Sept 22, 2014. Lahore

Abubakr MuhammadDirector, Laboratory for Cyber Physical Networks and Systems

Dept of Electrical EngineeringSBA School of Science & Engineering

Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan

Outline

• Introduction• Hydrometry for distributary canals• Design and setup• Performance and related observations • Hydrometry for small watercourses and outlets • Water Networks : A CPS / IoT perspective• Conclusions and outlook

Regulation Structure

Ref. Absar, Gardezi, Muhammad, Shah. DPRC, 2011

Hydrometry for Open Channel Flows

Objective: Measure flows in distributary canal networks

Hydrometry for Open Channel Flows• Outdated infrastructure• Gaps in monitoring expertise• Objective: To develop a low-cost low-power robust flow gauge

Canal Water Accounting (Current PMIU System)

Courtesy. Program Monitoring & Implementation Unit (PMIU), Punjab Irrigation Dept

Challenges

• Power / energy autarky• Communication mode• Physical security• Cost / scalability• Calibration / maintenance• Data dissemination / services

Solution: A smart metering like approach

Smart Water Grid : LUMS-IWMI collaboration

Goal: To install a network of 20+ sensors at a real site (distributary network on Hakra Branch, Bahawalnagar)

Smart Water Grid in Bahawalnagar

Ref. Ahmad, Muhammad. IECON 2013

Hakra Branch Distributaries

Packaging / Assembly

Circuitry Enclosure

Material die cast Aluminum

IP 67 Enclosures Connectors for external

antenna and temperature sensors are also IP67 standard

Stilling well / Civil Infrastructure

60cm x 90cm To secure

electronics High strength PCC

concrete No steel

reinforcement for good GSM reception

Ultrasonic Sensor

• Maxbotix MB7380 Ultra Sonic Sensor• 1mm resolution, 1% accuracy

Block diagram of Smart Water Meter

Unit Performance

• 10 months data of a field deployed unit (5R) with 10 minutes sampling interval.

• Average signal level -69dBm• 42,187 samples

Flow Calibration • Level to flow calibration • Hydraulic rating equation (Manning equation)

Network Performance: Data Loss

Network Performance: Data Loss

Network Performance: Data Loss

Network Performance: Data Loss

Automatic Failure Notification

Latency

• Latency: interval between time of measurement and the time data is received by the server

• Recall: We measure every 10 min, transmit – every 1 hour when normal flow– every 6 hours when zero flow (sleep mode)

• Theoretical average latency at each sensor– Normal flow: (0+10+20+30+40+50) / 6 = 25 min– Zero flow: (0+10+ … + 350) / 36 = 87.5 min

Latency

• Latency: interval between time of measurement and the time data is received by the server

Latency in minutes for blocks of data received from different sensors in the network for four hours interval.

Latency

Average weekly latency in minutes for the whole network.

Latency

Average latency in minutes for individual sensors in the network.

What did we learn?

• Sensing by ultra-sonics works great • Battery operated sensors give acceptable

performance (no alternative power source needed)

• Communications is a major problem– Needs major fixes – Ties to power and firmware related failures

• System reliability requires – Incrementally better electronics – But substantially better backend services

Regulation Structure

Ref. Absar, Gardezi, Muhammad, Shah. DPRC, 2011

What are the future areas of foucs?

• Redundancy– Gate automation – More sensors

• Soft Sensors – State estimation– Kirchhoff measurement– Fault detection

• An autonomous middle layer

• Power – Energy Harvesting

Outlook: Hydrometry for Small Watercourses

• Scalability, cost, power, communication issues are even more challenging.

• A true smart water metering solution is needed. • DAAD funded project EnA²S²W² : • Collaboration between LUMS and HS Offenburg (Prof. Dr. Axel

Sikora)

Installation at LUMS

A Networked Smart Water Grid

Embedded controller

Gate control

Flow Measurements

Wireless connectivity

A Networked Smart Water Grid

Cyber Physical Systems / Internet of Things perspectives • Physical elements: rivers, watercourses, barrages, weirs, gates, pumps • Cyber elements : sensors, controllers, comm., services

Low level downstream control

Closed Loop On-Off Control

System Health / Network Security

• Control of nontechnical losses– Detection of Leak or unauthorized

takeoff– Detection of unauthorized dumps

• Flood/breach security

Ref. Nasir, Muhammad. IEEE CCA 2012

What type of problems can be solved?

• Increase of distribution efficiency• Demand based delivery • Control of nontechnical losses

– Detection of Leak or unauthorized takeoff– Detection of unauthorized dumps

• System health monitoring• Flood/breach security• Real-time scheduling and planning• Improvement and enforcement of water rights

System Identification / Model Learning for Control

Ref. Nasir, Muhammad. IFAC 2011.

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System ID: ExperimentsLocation:

– KHAIRA Distributory– Length 87000 feet– Width 10 feet– Max height 4 feet– 3 Minors– Discharge 87 cusecs

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System ID: ExperimentsProcedure:– Water level sensors are placed at appropriate sites along the

canal and communicate through mobile or other networks.– At the Upstream, Gate is closed and then subsequently

opened to generate a step input.– The readings are recorded and then used as empirical

output, in conjunction with the input, to perform System Identification.

System ID: Least Squares Estimation

System ID: Least Squares Estimation

System ID: Model Validation

Conclusions / Final Thoughts• Canal networks are good candidates for CPS / IoT driven solutions to improve

water efficiency, specially in developing world settings.

• Scalable low-power hydrometry is the key to making complex decision support systems. There is both a need and a market for it.

• Ultrasonic ranging based hydrometry for open channels is an interesting embedded design problem requiring solutions that adhere to particular settings.

• Low power real-time data-logging has been demonstrated for a medium-sized canal network.

• A lot can be learnt from “smart metering” solutions from other application domains.

• Power and communications are key challenges towards water metering.

Water Related Publications (2011-2014)• Saad Aleem, Hasan Nasir, Abubakr Muhammad, "System Identification of Distributory Canals in the

Indus Basin." 19th World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC 2014), Cape Town, South Africa, 24-29 August 2014. (To Appear) Preprint

• Talha Manzoor, Sergey Aseev, Elena Rovenskaya, Abubakr Muhammad, "Optimal Control for Sustainable Consumption of Natural Resources." 19th World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC 2014), Cape Town, South Africa, 24-29 August 2014. (To Appear) Preprint

• Zahoor Ahmad and Abubakr Muhammad, "Design, Calibration and Performance of a Low-Power Wireless Sensor Node for Open Channel Flows", 39th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON), Vienna, Austria, 2013.

• Zahoor Ahmad, Ehsan U. Asad, Abubakr Muhammad, Waqas Ahmad and Arif Anwar, "Development of a Low-Power Smart Water Meter for Discharges in Indus Basin Irrigation Network", Wireless Sensor Networks for Developing Countries, Springer Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS), Volume 366, 2013, pp 1-13. Preprint

• Zaeem Hussain and Abubakr Muhammad, "Sample size reduction in groundwater surveys via sparse data assimilation," IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control (ICNSC), Paris-Evry University, France 2013. Preprint

• Hasan Nasir and Abubakr Muhammad, "Locating Leaks & Dumps in Open Channels with Minimal Sensing," IEEE Conference on Control Applications (CCA), Dubrovnik, Croatia 2012. Preprint

• Muhammad Umer Tariq, Hasan Arshad Nasir, Abubakr Muhammad and Marilyn Wolf, “Model-Driven Performance Analysis of Large Scale Irrigation Networks,” IEEE/ACM International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS), Beijing, China, 2012. Preprint

• Hasan Nasir and Abubakr Muhammad, "Feedback Control of Very-Large Scale Irrigation Networks: A CPS Approach in a Developing-World Setting." 18th World Congress of International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), Milano, Italy, 2011. Preprint