Allen

Hello readers, 

I am Koburongo Allen a forth year software engineering student at Makerere University registration    number 12/U/7297/EVE. Welcome to my blog page and have fun as you interact with this page.

As a group we had suggested many ideas, but the idea of implementing an embedded system that reduces water contamination was crucial. This idea came about after studying the trend on how people get water borne diseases as a result of using unsafe water. But from the fact that water contamination is a wide topic, it required to work with my colleagues to finally come up with a final system to implement.

I researched on the water contaminant that causes dysentery and diarrhea in water. E.coli bacteria being one of the causes of most waterborne diseases we as a group had to agree to implement a system that detects E.coli bacteria in water.

        

1.0 CONCEPT PAPER WRITING

 Problem Statement

Water contamination is caused by many pollutants. Escherichia Coli bacteria is the most popular water pollutant apparently [1]. Escherichia coli bacteria contamination in drinking water causes serious illness to large numbers of people all over the world. This has become more rampant due to faecal contamination from animals and birds waste.

It is characterized with causing persistent headaches, diarrhea and causes dysentery among people who use water that is contaminated with Escherichia coli bacteria.

Envisaged solution

The proposed solution is to develop an embedded system that will detect Escherichia coli bacteria before water is used. The presence of E-Coli in water is detected by the presence of methane gas which is given out liquefied animal wastes.

 2.0 PROPOSAL WRITING

Together with my colleague Joy Sophia. We worked on the background and literature review of the project. This is summarized as shown below.

LITERATURE REVIEW

According to our investigation, waterborne diseases are some the consequences that raise when contaminated water is consumed. These diseases include dysentery, cholera, diarrhea and urinary tract infection.

We found out that the bacteria present in faeces and found that “Bacterium coli commune” (now named Escherichia coli) was found in faecal material from animals and humans beings.

E. coli is an indicator of fecal contamination.

We analyzed various systems, how they were implemented their strength and weaknesses and how E-coli bacteria was detected in those systems.

·         Automated Microfiltration to Purify GFP-His. It was developed to detect the presence E.coli bacteria in contaminated water. The system was scientific and required a lot of scientific knowledge. Secondly, it was time consuming and required a lot of labor.

·   The second system was E.coli bacteria detection based on wireless sensor networks (WSNs) technology. The system very expensive requiring many sensors and did not mainly focus on E.coli bacteria detection, hence more research was required.

·         A biosensor system was developed to detect bacterial concentration in products so that it does not exceeds the limits allowed by the law. This system slow, expensive and complicated for end users to use.

3    
3  3.0 SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION

I explained chapter 2.4 and chapter 2.5 of the requirements specification document. It explains the constraints, assumptions and dependencies of using this system.

2.4 Development environment

     i.      We aim to use Arduino framework as a programming platform to develop the entire system. This is because it enables easy implementation and prototyping of electronic ideas into projects.

   ii.       C programming language because it interact directly with hardware components. 

2.5 Assumptions and Dependencies 

The following were the assumptions that we used on our system

 (i) We shall assume that the system shall be installed at the users’ premises.

(ii) We shall assume that users use water on daily basis.

(iii) We shall assume that the users are made aware of the cause of unsafe water due to human and    animal contamination in water. 

2.5.1.Dependencies
The system will depend on sensor communication with the microcontroller and GSM Module that will allow interaction (communication) between the mobile users and the system. The system requires administrators to monitor performance, to keep the system secure.  The system requires users to always view and read information sent to the mobile device about water safety. Since the system software and firmware requires overtime evolution, it will require a systems programmer to manage the evolutionary process depending on the user future demands. 

 SOFTWARE DESIGN DOCUMENT

Below is the pseudo code for Automated Ecoli bacteria detector system 

Start sensorAnalogRead,

threshold value=55ppm;

if (is methane gas detected )

read Analog value;

else

scan gas value;

Pseudo code for comparing gas values.

analogRead();

if (detected gas value is greater than threshold value)

send an alerting message;

make a system call;

else if (detected gas value is less or equal to threshold value)

send a message notification;

make a system call;

Chapter 6 majorly contained screen objects and actions and it explains how users interact with the system.

 5.0 PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION

       I bought some of the equipment that we need to have the system complete like the sensor

     I did the code that scans gas from the sensor and checking whether water is safe for a given time. This is shown below

// scans gas from the sensor

int ScanGasLevel()

{

Gas_value=analogRead(pin); // reads the pin output (Vout of LM35)

return Gas_value; // returns returns the value of the gas .....

}

       // checks when water has been safe for a given time

void Check_Gas_Wait()

{

if(analogRead(pin)<gas_level)

{

Gas_value=ScanGasLevel();

SendMessage();

MakeCall();

delay(1000);

}

 6.0 REPORT CONTRIBUTION

  In the report writing, I participated in chapter 3 which explains the implementation phase.

3.1 Implementation (coding and compilation)

·         For implementation in terms of code, we used the following tools

• ·         Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for writing, debugging, compiling the source code and uploading it to the hardware.
• ·         Proteus. This is used for simulating system components.
• ·         Methane gas sensor to determine the threshold frequency and the presence of methane gas in the water as an indicator of E.coli bacteria in water.
• ·         GSM module. We used a GSM SIM900 to send messages to the mobile user indicating the presence and absence of methane gas produced by E-coli bacteria in water.
• ·         A number of selected jumper wires to enable us connect the components to the Arduino micro-controller.

3.2 Anomalies:

·         We experienced freezing of the Arduino IDE when opening up more than one instance of the application. This occurs when the serial COM port is busy.

3.3 Utilities for validation and testing

The utilities, which were implemented to assist in validation, testing and specification of the test environment include;

• Arduino IDE- this was used to test the code to make sure that it has no errors.
• Proteus – this was used for simulation of the system. This tool has library components like Arduino, GSM module and gas sensor that were corresponding to the system.

Conclusion and Recommendations

I was dedicated to contribute in the entire project from the start up to the end. I found it interesting working with my group mates and I am happy that this system is working as required.

I strongly recommend those who would ever wish to integrate this project to study other water contaminants in details. Water contamination has become a big challenge to this country.