Compound Level Mapping Boat

Introduction

According to many industrial activities, water pollution has become a major problem in many countries. There are 2 main methods of water pollution.

• Disposing wastage directly in to water sources. (Hard waste and chemical waste)

• Compounds of wastage disposal sites and Agriculture fields are dissolve in rain water and collected to water sources.

Nitrogen and Phosphorus are main elemental needs of plants. In agriculture fields, farmers are mostly using NPK fertilizers to provide the above elements. However, these compounds get dissolved in rain water and get mixed with nearby water sources. Further, some industries are disposing wastage that contain these elements in improper ways. This results into rising the level of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in water sources; such as lakes, tanks, and rivers. Hence, Algae starts to grow in water.

Solution

By monitoring the water quality at several places in water sources, we can identify whether there are changes in its contents. For this, we are proposing an autonomous boat with a sensor system. Following are the main tasks of the boat.

• Navigate through the given GPS points.

• Measure Nitrogen and Phosphorus levels in the particular GPS points.

• Send the collected data and the relevant GPS coordinate to the centralized server through the telemetry.

Making the map

Using the collected data, the server creates a map according to the content levels of the water. If a particular compound is higher than the normal rate, relevant GPS point will be marked in Red.

We can identify the Phosphorus and Nitrogen level high areas by using this map. If these are coming through small water sources, the intersecting area of water sources can be identified as red. Then we can identify the source of Nitrogen and Phosphorus and by stopping this we can avoid mixing these with the main water sources.

In this map we can identify the top water stream as the source with high N and P concentrate.

Through this we can prevent mixing these compounds to the water sources and avoid growing algae in them. As we are making this map using Google maps, we can search about nearby factories, agriculture fields after identifying high compound levels and by informing them we can avoid mixing them.

Advantages

There are several advantages of using autonomous boats for this purpose.

• Large areas can be covered from one boat. (Cost effective when compared to mounting sensor system at several locations at water sources.)

• Repairs can be done at one place. (Need to move to every point if we use sensor systems at several locations)

• No installing cost.

• After identifying a new Nitrogen and Phosphorus source, the mission can be changed to observe the particular area more closely.

• No need of high cost and long term aquatic sensors.

Implementation

The boat is powered by a brush-less motor and the main energy source is a Li-Po battery. Also it has mounted sails to minimize the power consumption. In the presence of wind, it uses sails to move. Various types of sensors are installed to measure the Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Oxygen levels. The hull is made out of Carbon fiber to reduce the weight as much as possible. A small water pump and a tank is installed inside to collect water samples for lab testings if needed.

Arduino based Pixhawk module acts as the main processing board. It navigates the boat through the given GPS points and get the readings from the sensors. Finally, it transmits data to the server through the connected telemetry.

When the battery is low, it automatically returns to the charging dock which is powered by solar panels. Even solar panels can be installed on the boat, in order to reduce its weight they are mounted separately.