In-situ turbidity sensor system for residential water quality monitoring

Remote monitoring of water quality is becoming more widespread and has the potential to fill gaps in facilities, as well as offer tailored assessments of risks related to the quality of water. We developed a residential water monitoring system based on a miniaturised turbidity sensor that is installed on the side pipe branched off from the main pipeline. Our objective is to design the turbidity sensor integrated pipe system via the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation analysis and manufacture it using ABS material of 3D printing technology combined with stainless steel. The turbidity sensor is assembled utilising an infrared LED emitter and phototransistor that are positioned at a 90° angle. The sensor response signal is acquired by using an Arduino board and transmitted to the main controller, which enables real-time adjustments in the water supply as well as shutting down the pipeline in emergency situations. The linear correlation between the signal from the sensor unit and varying nephelometric turbidity units (NTU) standard turbidity solutions demonstrates that our residential water monitoring system can be successfully applied to water supply facilities.