SOKOINE UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE

COLLAGE OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCE (CoNAS)

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (DIIT)

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN INFORMATICS

SPECIAL PROJECT PROPOSAL

TITLE: Design and Implementation of Low Unit Level Detection and Notification
Through SMS for Electrical Meters using Internet of Things (IoT).

STUDENT NAME: FUNDIKIRA, MARIAM MSABILA.

REGISTRATION NUMBER: INF/D/2019/0005

SUPERVISOR: ANNA

JANUARY 2022
Design and Implementation of Low Unit Level Detection and Notification Through SMS for
Electrical Meters using Internet of Things (IoT).
 TABLE CONTENTS.
CHAPTER 1..........................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................3
1.1 Background to the study........................................................................................................4
1.2 Problem statement.......................................................................................................................5
1.3.0 Objectives.................................................................................................................................5
1.3.1 main objective.......................................................................................................................5
1.3.2. specific objectives................................................................................................................5
1.4 Justification for research..............................................................................................................5
CHAPTER TWO...................................................................................................................................6
LITERATURE REVIEW..................................................................................................................6
2.1 Electrical meter reading...............................................................................................................7
2.2 Electrical meter monitoring.........................................................................................................7
2.3 Internet of things (IoT) based monitoring....................................................................................7
2.3.1 Internet of things (IoT) electrical meter monitoring..............................................................8
2.4 Review of related system.......................................................................................................9
conclusion............................................................................................................................................10
CHAPTER THREE.............................................................................................................................10
METHODOLOGY..............................................................................................................................10
3.0 Introduction...............................................................................................................................10
3.1 Study area..................................................................................................................................11
3.2 System implementation and development methodology............................................................11
3.3 Requirement gathering.............................................................................................................11
3.3 Data collection...........................................................................................................................12
3.4 Data analysis..............................................................................................................................12
3.5 System design............................................................................................................................12
 CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Introduction
Electricity has made certain processes easier and faster thereby easing our way of life. All
home appliances and devices, even some vehicles now, run on electrical power, thus,
Electricity has turned out to be basic need for human survival and advancement.
Governments around the world have made the availability of electricity a priority as
electricity is very necessary for developmental progress.

The latest advancements in technology ensure that everything becomes digital and propels the
need to communicate using digital means. Nowadays due to the excessive use of the internet
and technology, there are areas which become computerized and online. But accessing meter
reading is a manual process. People have to check their electricity meter reading manually. In
Tanzania, people have to check their meter balance manually and recharge them. Hence, they
do not know the remaining amount of electricity amount of electricity without manually
visiting the electric meters.

The basic working idea is to get the appropriate reading from the energy meter accurately
and. With the aim of designing and implementing a low unit level detection and notification
through SMS for electrical meters using internet of things (IoT). Systems integrated with
SMS services.

1.1 Background to the study

Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that combines the fields of computer science and
electronics. Through IoT technology, one or several objects can communicate with each other
through the internet network. IoT objects are equipped with microcontrollers and sensor
devices that are connected and integrated with software applications/systems that allow
communicating and interacting with other objects. Objects in IoT can be any device, animal,
person, building, vehicle, or physical object that is part of daily life.
Internet of Things (IoT) links anything from anywhere in the universe. It communicates with
almost everything around the world. Communication can be a control signal or identified data
from this world. It is a common internet data communication and is communicated in
different ways. The Internet of Things (IoT) collects the data of automated objects and helps
the machine learn where it needs.
The advancement of the Internet of Things has been emerging day by day. The Internet of
Things (IoT) revolves around connection between devices embedded with electronics,
software, sensors, actuators that assist users in monitoring and controlling devices remotely
and efficiently.
Automatic Meter Reading (ARM) technology facilitates the assessment of energy
consumption and analysis of data for billing and payment. ARM technology requires to bring
the device online and connecting device with the internet which is in other term Internet of
Things.
In recent years’ enormous research and papers have proposed the design and development of
energy meter monitoring system. Such systems proposed are Wi-Fi based single-phase smart
meter based on IoT.

1.2 Problem statement

The existing energy meter system has many problems associated to it and one of the key
problem is there is no full duplex communication. For many year’s people who use prepaid
Electricity Metering experienced many challenges one among the biggest challenges is lack
of notification based on the unit consumed by the user especially when it reaches low unit. To
solve this problem, a Design and Implementation of Low Unit Level Detection and
Notification Through SMS for Electrical Meters meter is proposed based on Internet of
Things (loT). The system will be helpful to society (users) by notifying the user and
providing SMS alerts of low and expired credit. The maximum and minimum units are set to
10 units and 2 units respectively. Therefore, energy analysis by the consumer becomes much
easier and controllable. Thus, the system also helps in home automation using IoT and
enabling wireless communication which is a great step towards Digital Tanzania.

1.3.0 Objectives
1.3.1 main objective
To Design and Implement a Low Unit Level Detection and Notification Through SMS for
Electrical Meters using the Internet of Things (IoT).

1.3.2. specific objectives

 To assemble Internet of Things (IoT) such as voltage sensors commonly CT sensors
for the data monitoring and communication using IoT network protocols to connect
devices over a network allowing end-to-end data communication to be used within the
network.
  To develop an Application Interface for customers as the front-end software will be
used for providing real-time power consumption details including low balance alert
remotely.
 To create a database for storing the electricity usage and based on the usage the
amount can be determined the cloud server for each device.
 To develop a USSD querying for request information on their registered accounts.

1.4 Justification for research

To the organization

The research is undertaken to establish an efficient application to be used by people in the

Morrogoro municipal and facilitate easy meter balance. Also the research is conducted to
establish the role of Information technology in power sector.
 CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 Introduction
This section reviews the research works carried out by different researchers that are related to
the proposed work. All researchers have aimed to design and Implement electrical meters
monitoring using the Internet of Things (IoT). In general, the electrical meters monitoring
system provided inclusive and continuous access to energy consumption to the consumer by
exploiting the advancement of IoT technology. The developed system provides the tools for
electrical meters monitoring with convenience and easy comfort.

Electrical meters monitoring system becomes an important strategic tool since it collects,
manages, and reports information for decision-making. A fully integrated electrical meters
monitoring system ought to interface with other systems enabling and enhancing the
communication between the customer and their electrical meter.

2.1 Electrical meter reading.

To measure the amount of energy consumed by domestic, commercial and industrial user,
energy meter is being used. However, the assessment of meter reading is still carried out
manually. This requires huge manpower. Further, the incorrectness in assessment.
According to (Arabelli, 2019) as the population of energy consumers are gradually increasing
meter reading and monitoring system helps to ease the energy management. The paper
depicts the solution for reducing human involvement in energy management for the domestic
and industrial consumers. By designing and Implementing of a Low Unit Level Detection and
Notification Through SMS for electrical meters using internet of things (IoT).

2.2 Electrical meter monitoring.

The energy monitoring system is a system that measures utilization of power in normal
interims and allows that data to be accessible to its partners by a system interface ( M. A. B.
Dinesh Thanth, 2015). The energy monitoring system allows the likelihood to give prompt
feedback on an individual’s power utilization which saves the work of reading the values
from the meter. Also according to ( M. C. Shie, 2014) the monitoring helps the presentation of
time-based energy-tariffs and conceivably helps a fast access for turning the power flow
on/off. Other than that, in near future, energy monitoring system can act as a central
component, for instance, an autonomous energy system.
The advantages of real time monitoring need no human operator to go to the consumers
address to take down the reading. Hence extra labor cost is reduced, the consumers or clients
will be traced out of their electricity power utilization, and the readings recorded can be used
by the Research and development department and IoT interfaces countless devices that gather
metadata for handling (Arabelli, 2019).

2.3 Internet of things (IoT) based monitoring.

Today, technology has become an integrated part of people’s lives. It has, and continues to
influence many aspects of daily life and has allowed better social interaction, ease of
transportation, the ability to indulge in entertainment and media and has helped in the
development in medicine (Kumar,2016). With the introduction of IoTs, the research and
development of Internet of things (IoT) based monitoring are becoming popular in the recent
days.

The Internet of things (IoTs) can be defined as connecting the various types of objects like
smart phones, personal computer and Tablets to internet, which brings in very newfangled
type of communication between things and people and also between things (Islam M, 2019).
Many of the devices are controlled and monitored for helps the human being. Additionally,
various wireless technologies help in connecting from remote places to improve the
intelligence of home environment. An advanced network of IoT is being formed when a
human being is in need of connecting with other things. IoTs technology is used to come in
with innovative idea and great growth for smart homes to improve the living standards of life

IoT is making any objects internally connected in the recent decade and it has been
considered as the next technological revolution (Kumar,2016). IoT is nothing but linking
computers to the internet utilizing sensors and networks. These connected components can be
used on devices monitoring. The used sensors then forward the information to distant
locations like M2M, which are machinery for computers, machines for people, handheld
devices, or smartphones (Islam M, 2019).

2.3.1 Internet of things (IoT) electrical meter monitoring.

With the mass development in technology and gadgets, our daily life is getting involved with
the internet. The energy meter available till now can only control and monitor the energy
consumption of customers. Smart energy meter developed using power line communication
(PLC) helps in monitoring. Several system using Arduino as well as microcontroller have
been developed though the efficiency to measure power consumption drastically increased
but due to cost effective it may not be considered as the suitable one (). The consumer cannot
have a good and accurate track of the energy consumption on a more interval basis.

The IoT-based architecture provides high-level flexibility at the communication and

information. It is an approach which is relevant in many different environments such as
patient monitoring system, security, traffic signal control or controlling various applications.
The IoT projects proves a dominant and thorough study of all sensible functionalities,
mechanisms and various protocols that can be used for building IoT architectures however
interconnections may occur between all totally different IoT applications. As in the
networking field, where several solutions emerged at his infancy to leave place to a common
model, the TCP/IP protocol suite, the emergence of a common reference model for the IoT
domain and the identification of reference architectures can lead to a faster, more focused
development and an exponential increase of IoT-related solutions. These solutions can
provide a strategic advantage to mature economies, as new business models can leverage
those technological solutions room for economic development.

2.4 Review of related system.

Medina et al (2018) conducted a study of monitoring and control of IoT-based electrical
energy consumption using Raspberry Pi, where measurement data is displayed on an Android
application [44]. The devices used to build the IoT are Arduino Uno, ACS DC8A AC/DC
50A Current Sensor, Raspberry Pi, and Relay Module. The workings of this system are Relay
and Current Sensor connected to Arduino Uno. The analog input from the sensor is accepted
by Arduino Uno and controlled by Raspberry Pi. The collected data is processed and sent to
the database via Raspberry Pi. Data visualization is displayed in the Android Application.
Based on the results of testing, the system has a high accuracy that is equal to 99.5% in
certain devices but there are some devices with low accuracy.

Hiremath et al (2017) researched IoT-based energy control and monitoring devices [42]. The
research presents the design and implementation of energy meters using an Arduino
microcontroller which can be used to measure the power consumed by each electrical device.
The main objective of the research is to monitor the power consumption of the device, send
measurement data to the server using the Wi-Fi module and the measurement results can be
monitored from anywhere via a web-based application so that users can control energy use.
The microcontrollers and sensors used are Arduino Uno, ESP8266, ACS712 Current Sensor,
LCD, RTC, and Relay Driver. The measurement results are not explained in the paper,
because the focus of the study is more on the application of the tool.

Kurde and Kukarni (2016) researched IoT-based Smart Power Metering [43]. This research
focuses on designing devices that can measure and report energy usage or receive control
inputs through the network. IoT devices used to take measurements are the ACS712 Current
Sensor, Relay, Transistor, Arduino Uno, and Raspberry pi. Protocol for data communication
using MQTT, the data is stored and processed using Thing Speak. The way this system works
is the current sensor measures the current flowing through the device, then the controller
performs the required calculations on the data and places the data on the internet. Current
data and voltage data obtained are processed to obtain the amount of energy consumption.

Marinakis and Doukas (2018) conducted a study to present an IoT for intelligent energy
management in buildings [45]. The Internet of Things based system is implemented to
increase the interactivity of building energy management systems, and support changes in the
behavior of occupants who are active in buildings. The system built gives the end-user to find
out how much energy is consumed in total and information on the estimated impact on
energy use. This system uses sensors that are installed in buildings and get real-time
electricity consumption data. A web-based system is implemented in this study, its function is
as a virtual distribution of energy consumption in buildings that can be accessed via the
Internet. Through the web application, users can continue to monitor energy consumption
data and other indicators.

conclusion
A literature review has been conducted on several studies related to the application of IoT
technology in energy management systems. IoT technology has been applied in various fields
such as Smart Home, Smart Building, Smart Metering, Smart Environment, Commercial, and
others. Microcontrollers available to build IoT devices also vary from the cheapest to the
most expensive. Arduino and NodeMCU are microcontrollers most often used in building
IoT-based systems because they are cost-effective and modules that are provided compact
with microcontrollers such as Wi-Fi modules that are directly installed on NodeMCU. In its
application in the research environment, there are still many in the simulation/testing phase
because to implement IoT it requires the readiness of each element in it, such as the
availability of devices and also the environment/activities of each person must also adapt to
these developments.
 CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction
This Chapter presents the research study design. As Our societies crucially depend on high-
quality software for a large part of their functions and activities. Which means that software
researchers, managers, and developers have to be familiar with what technologies to use for
which purpose for a given software.

3.1 Study area.

The term population refers to a well-defined group from which a sample can be drawn and
which is specified in very concrete terms (Neuman, 2000:201). This study targets both the
administrative staff of Morogoro Tanesco workers and villagers of Morogoro municipal.
Morogoro is a city, with a population of 305,840 (2012 census), in the eastern part of
Tanzania, 196 kilometres (122 mi) west of Dar es Salaam, the country's largest city and
commercial centre, and 260 kilometres (160 mi) east of Dodoma, the country's capital city.
Morogoro is the capital of the Morogoro Region. It is also known informally as "Mji kasoro
bahari," which translates as "city short of an ocean/port.

3.2 System implementation and development methodology

The system shall be designed following the prototyping methodology. Prototyping-based
methodologies perform the analysis, design and implementation phases concurrently. All
three phases are performed repeatedly in a cycle until the system is completed. A prototype is
a smaller version of the system with a minimal amount of features.

Illustration of prototype methodology.

3.3 Requirement gathering.
Technology Used:
 Framework: JAVA MVC pattern
 System Requirement
 Minimum RAM: 256 MB
 Hard Disk: 40 GB
 Processor: Intel core I 5.
 Operating System: Windows OS, Linux OS, UNIX OS and Mac OS.
3.3 Data collection.

Data collection tools that are used to collect data. Qualitative and quantitative studies largely
use the same data collection methods. Popular examples of data collection techniques include
questionnaires, interviews and observations. This study will use both close-ended (structured)
and open-ended (unstructured) questionnaires.

3.4 Data analysis.

Data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics through percentages, bar graphs and charts
which show information collected from the field so the analysis of the data will be organized
and presented, where the researcher will summarize the responses from the respondent from
questionnaire and put them in are sensible manner and presentable manner the aim of
analyzing is to summarizes, identifying the needs that is to say interpreting and prepare the
report.
3.5 System design
System design is the process of defining the architecture, components, modules, interface,
and data for a system to satisfy specified requirement. this could also be seeing as the
application of the knowledge of System Analysis and Design to product development.
System design is said to be the descriptive in nature of what the system is and what it does
and shows how the expected program is to be operated.

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