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Gaza’s Water Wells System Based on SCADA

Conference Paper · October 2014

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 ICES5 PROCEEDING-PP. 1-3 GAZA, 4-5 NOVEMBER
2014

Gaza’s Water Wells System Based on SCADA

Basil Hamed and Adham Abu Shamla

Abstract— Gaza city has 21 water wells within a radius of 40 square kilometer that feeds the city with water.
The control of water wells still stays in a manual state and some of these wells are on isolated area. A water
distribution system must be operated properly so that it performs at an acceptable level of service. This paper
describes the application of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) technology on water well control
monitoring system in Gaza-strip. The proposed system is designed to solve the major problems in water
distribution in Gaza city, through solving some weak points such as accuracy and delay in gathering data by
using SCADA, and synchronization between water distribution and electricity existence.

Solving the existing water distribution problem by using INTEGRAXOR SCADA program which is pure
webserver that it doesn’t need any additional programs. Also using programmable logic controller (PLC) to act
as interface between hardware component and software program. In addition controlling via mobile had been
added to the system as a second method

Index Terms— SCADA, Water Wells, PLC, GSM, INTEGRAXOR

I INTRODUCTION
No one can deny that the world is facing an advance
level of technology, today we clearly see that the machines
are taking the place of the human almost in every kind of
industrial areas, and as the amount of work that need to be
done increase the use of the machine will increase more
and more for the purpose of best performance.
Although, there is nothing in any processor in the world
can tack the place of the human mind, and the ability of
human in taking suite decision, machine can only do what
had been programmed to do. This will guide us to the fact
that we can’t avoid watching the operation of the machine
even if we programmed it to do what need to be done ex-
actly.
The control methods are keep improving, recently a
control method called the supervisory control and data
acquisition (SCADA) has been designed [1, 2, 3]. SCADA
can provide the ability of gathering the data and act as su-
pervisor on the work of Programmable logic Controller
(PLC). Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) is consid-
ered the first choice in indutrial control, to control into
————————————————
 Basil Hamed and Adham Abu Shamla are with the Electrical Engineer-
ing Department, Islamic University of Gaza, Gaza, Palestine.
sensor and actuate the different type of actuators. So, it
must create a way to connect between these I\O devices
and build an interfacing between these devices and PLC.
The control of water wells in Gaza city still stays in a
manual state. The taking transporting and supplying of
water can’t be coordinated, the level of automation, the
control accuracy and stability is lower; water plant opera-
tors can’t keep informed of the specific operating parame-
ters and all kinds of accident information in time. The wa-
ter patrol officers had an intensive labor to carry out in-
spections and operations to twenty one wells every day and
even through can’t dispatch the water wells in time. In re-
sponse to above problem, water well SCADA system is
designed to realize the remote sensing and control of Gaza
city water plant network system[4,5,6].
II SCADA HARDWARE COMPONENTS
The SCADA system is low on system requirements and
easy to implement, which provide the ability of control-
ling and gathering the required data of the far away pro-
ject, so many benefits will be available [7]. The final re-
sult of the proposed project was successful and solved
the problems of Gaza city water distribution system and
improved the efficiency of the water control monitoring.

5th international conference for Engineering and sustinability-Faculty of Engineering-Islamic University Gaza 1
 ICES5-2014/ Basil Hamed and Adham Abu Shamla
SCADA system in this paper is used to monitor and control
an equipment in wells sites and consists of a group of ter-
minal units such as PLC & its extensions I\O terminals.
SCADA collects the data from wells sites and send it to the
base station via communication systems (Internet). These
acquired data are displayed on the master server computer
in a base station to supervisor and remote control in all
wells as shown in Figure 1.
In SCADA systems there are different levels such as:
- Sensors and devices on fieldbus.
- Terminal units and programmable logic controller.
- Communication systems
- Master server in base station site.
- Client computers in water wells sites.
Figure 1: SCADA System Component
Sensors ‫ ـــ‬pressure (Low & high) sensor to feedback (as
shown in Figure 2) an indication at specific pressure in
pipeline and another sensors that gathering data measured
to client computer to analysis [8]. It’s resending to the
master server via internet communication systems, today
there are an intelligent electronics devices (IEDs) that
contain a microprocessor and it able to direct connected
with fieldbus then to PLC then to client computer [9].
Figure 2: High & Low Pressure Sensors
5th international conference for Engineering and sustinability-Faculty of Engineering-Islamic University Gaza 2
Switches ‫ ـــ‬In SCADA systems need to different types of
switches to perform the control action that take to solve
some urgent problem or to execute some orders.
PLC ‫ ـــ‬Programmable Logic Controller, it is considered as
the main control unit or central processing unit in SCADA
systems which are responsible for all logic operations in
wells, and it can be classified as standard or extension units
based on over the evolution of the project in the future, it
also contain a communication ports such as (RS-232, RS-
485, Ethernet) which considered as the interface between
PLC and client computer or sometimes another
programmable logic controller device.
As we know there are different types of sensor and it return
different types of data such as Analog or digital data, so the
PLC must be able to connect with these different types of
sensors via different types of Terminals such as analog and
digital I\O terminal pins as well counter pins.
Figure 3: Programmable Logic Controller Main
A SCADA system gathers information via client computer
that existence in water well site after processing it, such as
low pressure in pipeline case that means there is leakage in
pipeline or that the pump stopped working for some
reason. Then alerts the base station that an error occur in
water well which have an ID (e.g. 27) via internet
communication system (which considered the connection
link between the base station and water wells sites). Then
the base station carrying out the necessary control and
analysis based on information and commands lines that
stored into it or via operator that existence in base
STATION.
 ICES5-2014/ Basil Hamed and Adham Abu Shamla

es with INTEGRAXOR server [10]. After that all inputs

and outputs that connected with PLC will link with HMI
via INTEGRAXOR server without need to define the driv-
III SCADA SOFTWARE er for each control device to connect if with client comput-
er in each water wells site as shown in Figure 5.
In the previous section SCADA hardware and its
components is presented. Now in this section SCADA
software and how can be connect it with these component
will be explained. First the requirements of SCADA
software is presented:

HMI ‫ ـــ‬Human Machine Interface, which is the interface

between human and machine and it is used to enable the
operator to operating the water well and monitor and
control it from the display as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 5: The Basic Architecture for Link PLC with

Figure 4: The HMI for Water Well INTERGRAXOR Server

Alarm ‫ ـــ‬is one of the basic component of SCADA

software and it is an important for the operator to monitor
As, an example an operator can monitor the water flow
alarms, we add color code for alarm about it emergency
through the pipeline and its pressure, so if low pressure
level on HMI to indicate the operator on the error and its
occurred in the pipeline it will be warn him to fix it.
emergency level on the system and we use Short Message
Service (SMS) as second way if the link between server
Figure 4 is just a picture design by using java script and
and water well site disconnect because some error make
all indications data in this display comes from sensors and
trip hardware.
valves that connected with PLC, so this HMI its job just
display data.
Report ‫ ـــ‬we used a template for report in INTERGAX-
OR program and link it fields with some critical value such
SCADA system means data acquisition and storage it in
as running time and the percentage of chlorine in the water
database with ability to recall this data within certain
and so on.
method like reports and/or graph.

OPC ‫ ـــ‬OLE for Process Control, which stand for Ob-

ject Linking and Embedding (OLE) for process control,
which is standard communication system was created for a
purpose of coordination transferring data between control
device (PLC) and different water wells.
We used Component Object Model (COM) protocol,
which is binary interface it is used to create connection
between PLC that have an object that continuously change
its data as sensors, measurement device and another devic-
IV WATER WELL CONTROL
A water distribution system, like any large complex sys-
tem, must be operated properly so that it performs at an
acceptable level of service. Many water utilities use human
operators whose primary function is to monitor the pulse of
the water distribution system and provide system control
when needed [11, 12], for that we create different ways of

5th international conference for Engineering and sustinability-Faculty of Engineering-Islamic University Gaza 3
 ICES5-2014/ Basil Hamed and Adham Abu Shamla

control such as:
- Using internet communication systems.
- Using Global Service Mobile (GSM).
- Using Manual control
available in the location of the water well site. This method
is favorite to use manual control because it’s fast and easy,
all inputs represent by using button and the outputs repre-
sent by using indication Led as shown in Figure 8.

As we talk before we can access to client compute in

water well site from any place by using internet com-
munication systems then make monitoring and control-
ling on all inputs and outputs that connected with con-
trol device (PLC) using HMI pages that upload into
hosting server as shown in Figure 6

Figure 8: Illustration for Manual Control

V. WATER WELL MODEL

Figure 6: Illustration for Controlling via Internet
A demo model is created that looks exactly the same as
the real project, as shown in Figure 9. The mechanical body
Sometimes we can`t access to water well site by us-
and equipment used in the model are described in table 1, as
ing internet communication systems for some reason so,
points refer to the number in Figure 9.
we create another way to control via GSM to contact
with the control device (PLC) that according to the order
sent by the user it will give the suite action as shown in
Figure 7.

Figure 7: Illustration for Controlling via GSM

Figure 9: Water Well Model

Another way is created to control the water well which
is known as the traditional method. The traditional method
is commonly used especially when the operator will be

5th international conference for Engineering and sustinability-Faculty of Engineering-Islamic University Gaza 4
 ICES5-2014/ Basil Hamed and Adham Abu Shamla
Component Description
Number
1 The MPU which is the PLC.
2 The client computer which
INTEGRAXOR software
interconnected with water well.
3 An antenna symbol indicate the
connection with the internet service.
4 Water tank needed to wet the shaft of
the vertical pump before starting.
5 Chlorine tank needed to Sterilize the
water.
6 Generator as a backup power source.
7 Fuel tank.
8 The Pump.
9 Low pressure sensor.
10 High pressure sensor.
Table (1) Project Model Component Description
VI CONCLUSION
SCADA system has been designed to control the 21 water
wells of Gaza city. The proposed SCADA system designed
to monitor and control the water wells of Gaza city from
any place has three different ways of control; Manual con-
trol, GSM, and Internet Connection. The SCADA designed
system has been implanted in real time, and was successful
and will solve the problems of Gaza city water distribution
system and will improve the efficiency of the water control
monitoring
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