With growing population in cities and towns and water becoming scarce resource, it has become mandatory to meter water usage by both residential and commercial users worldwide.
The Different types of water meters are used for measuring water flow depends on flow rate, accuracy needed, size of the pipe and power availability and cost. Different types of water meters used include velocity meters, multi-jet meters, Turbine meters, compound meters, Electromagnetic meters and ultrasonic meters.
The meters are installed at locations where water is being delivered to end consumer or to an intermediate consumer i.e., a ward or a municipality etc. The flow data needs to be periodically collected in order to bill.
Each meter will have a Data logger with communication capabilities. The data logger will periodically monitor the flow meter and store the flow information.
There are various techniques available for collecting this data. These include
Proximity Reading – In this the reader/hand-held comes close to the meter to read and upload the data to the server through GPRS/3G/4G.
Radio Frequency - Periodic - In this each logger is enabled with RF transmitter to transmit the flow data at preset time. There will be a concentrator for every locality which shall receive these updates and upload to the server using GPRS/3G/4G.
WiFi – The loggers will be fitted enabled with WiFi so that the flow information can be uploaded through WiFi network. The network can be either public or private network of the end user.
Mobile – In this technique the loggers are enabled with GSM that the flow information is uploaded to the server through SMS or GPRS at intervals determined by configuration. This technique is one-to-one i.e., it does not depend on any external gateway or reader to upload the data.