Design and Development of a Solar-Powered Pump System with Liquid Level Sensor and Controller Using Internet of Things Iot Technology

Abstract

\n Renewable energy in our world today has greatly helped the ecosystem by reducing the amount of carbon content in the atmosphere. Recent studies have shown that the dependence on the National grid and fossil fuels for generating power for pumps is becoming alarming and as such, an alternative source for energy generation to power the pump system necessitated this research. The research relies on solar-generated power for driving pumps as opposed to fossil fuels. A submersible centrifugal pump was used because of its wide usage in various industries such as Oil and Energy, Pharmaceutical, Breweries, Production industries, Water corporations, Domestic and Commercial buildings, etc.\n We designed and constructed an automatic solar-powered pump system, integrated, and programmed the sensors using Arduino microcontroller and C++ programming language, respectively. We analyzed the telemetry data from the sensors and predicted the illuminance of light on the solar panel and sent the information via a web server using a GSM module. The solar-based pumping system consists of a submersible centrifugal pump, solar panel, solar charge controller, battery, remote controller, GSM module, photo sensor and a liquid level sensor. The photo sensor returns values ranging from 0 to 1023. The higher values: 700 – 1023 indicate that the sensor is in darker surroundings. The lower values: 0 - 650 indicate lighter surroundings when there is sufficient light on the sensor or its surroundings on the web server which display the plotted values in real-time. The system has been found to be viable and economical in the long run compared to the conventional system which uses fossil fuels. The solar energy received from the sun is converted to electrical energy by the solar panel. A proportion of the energy is used during the day while some is stored in the battery to be used at night or when the weather is cloudy. The controller regulates the liquid level in storage with the aid of liquid level sensor and affords the user the opportunity to control the system remotely. This system can be used for small and remote applications.