IoT-Based Bulk Water Monitoring Using Externally Connected Ultrasonic Transducers and AWS IoT Core

Abstract

Many countries, especially in Africa, lack sufficient water. Water is a valuable resource, with research focusing on reducing its consumption and on developing water-use monitoring systems. Industrial, commercial, and housing units often have leaks that waste a significant amount of water. To address this issue, the present study develops a system for monitoring large-scale water usage employing the Internet of Things (IoT) and ultrasonic flow measurement technology combined with cloud computing. The proposed system uses clamp-on ultrasonic transducers with an RS-485 Modbus interface, which can be installed without interrupting the flow. The TUF-2000 series ultrasonic flow meter is connected to a USR-DR502E 4G cellular modem and automatically sends real-time data to AWS IoT Core to identify leaks and send alerts using rule-based processing. With multi-parameter monitoring, the system keeps track of temperature, speed, flow rate, and cumulative flow data. Experimental results indicate that the system achieved a measurement accuracy of ±1.8%, an uptime of 99.2%, and a leak detection sensitivity of 0.5 L/min. Compared to conventional inline meters, the non-invasive installation method reduces deployment time by 95% while still providing better accuracy and reliability for monitoring large-scale water distribution.