.Some General Info.

Floods are a common occurrence in our country Malaysia. Due to our geographic infrastructure it is a problem that cannot be avoided fully. Thus a solution of a system designed using PLC and SCADA is proposed to serve as an early warning system and for monitoring purpose. The current water flood disaster almost hit people by surprise which means that there are least chances of saving personal belongings thus resulting in massive losses.

The problem with the current method of warning system is that it doesn’t actually apply measurement to the water level. The warning simply comes from weather forecast that predicts heavy rain. Since the warning is sometimes inaccurate it is troublesome for people to move their stuff.

With the current advancement of technology, it is inevitable that the implementation of a better system seems logical. Internet of Things (IoT) has become more and more popular as internet nowadays are more easily accessible by most people. The proliferation of a wide variety of Internet-connected and low-cost devices is leading to the intensive worldwide use of the Internet of Things (IoT) [1]. The mobility of use and freedom to control the device from anywhere (as long as there is internet connections) makes it all the more tempting.

.Main Purpose.

• To solve problems of early detection in flood disasters
• To design an early warning and monitoring system using Arduino based microcontroller.

.The Real Thing.

After the system had been fully developed, test and run the system had been doing to obtain the desired results. Despite that, this project only been developed the conceptual based on real system working principle to represent how the system function and operate in real situation. This illustrated figure below shows the conceptual design of water level flood warning system. The funnel and hose in the figure demonstrate how the water level in the river or lake may be raise with flow of water inside the container. 

Ultrasonic sensor as shown below had been used to detect the water level since its common application to detect distance an object from the sensor being attached. According to its datasheet, this sensor can measure distance from 2cm until 4m within 3mm accuracy, suitable to apply in this project. This sensor consists of two pins which are trigger input and echo output. In addition, those pins would only require normal I/O ports.

In order to control and monitor the sensor reading of the water level from anywhere and anytime, a system that have connection with internet must be create. The next figure that shows ESPresso Lite V2.0 had been chose as the microcontroller since it is a Wi-Fi module that contains several breakout pin of Global Peripheral Input Output (GPIO), very suitable and reliable to be apply in this system.

Since this system require additional features with monitoring and warning system, a continuous visualization for monitoring for the user should be create. The Blynk apps for android smart phone had been used for monitoring and warning purposes. This apps commonly been used cause it provides interface for any Iot application either to control or monitor by using mobile phone. It also have many friendly interesting interface and easily to manage according to the system designer desire. The following figures show examples of interface the Blynk apps that been applied in some project.

The interface of the Blynk apps. (Low level of water)

The interface of the Blynk apps. (Medium level of water)

The interface of the Blynk apps. (High level of water)