My team and I are engineering university students in Sydney, Australia and have been tasked with a project aiming to reduce resource wastage in Australia. We are interested in water conservation and are looking to create a smart metering system.
We would like to use a microphone + an Arduino to communicate with a Raspberry Pi. What is the best hardware to transmit this audio? We would also like these arduino + microphone units to be battery operated and be able to communicate with the Pi at distances of ~10m.
For the purposes of our demonstration these units do not need to last a long time on battery power.
We plan to eventually use the audio recordings captured by the arduino microphones to be matched by a machine learning algorithm to recognise the sound of a tap being switched on, vs talking / movement etc. Do you think microphone sensitivity to other white noise will be an issue?
The standard AVR based Arduinos are too limited in memory and computing power to handle audio. You might consider the much faster and more powerful Teensy micros, which can be programmed with the Arduino IDE.
How do you plan to send the audio 10 m? Your legal options for using wireless methods are quite limited.
Sound recognition by machine learning is a major challenge, and success will be very dependent on the quality of the audio captures.
Alec_Scott_:
We plan to eventually use the audio recordings captured by the arduino microphones to be matched by a machine learning algorithm to recognise the sound of a tap being switched on, vs talking / movement etc. Do you think microphone sensitivity to other white noise will be an issue?
A tap opened a little bit you can barely or not at all hear.
A tap opened much more sounds exactly like rain. So does a shower.
There's a much easier way to detect whether a tap is open or not: flow sensor in the water pipe. As a bonus you get to know the actual volume of water used.
Alec_Scott_:
We would like to use a microphone + an Arduino to communicate with a Raspberry Pi. What is the best hardware to transmit this audio?
Don't smart phones do voice recognition by sending stuff (is it just audio, or is it pre-processed?) to some BIG server with voice recognition software.
I think you need to find out exactly how that works. I suspect the task you are thinking of is not any easier.
Alec_Scott_:
My team and I are engineering university students in Sydney, Australia and have been tasked with a project aiming to reduce resource wastage in Australia. We are interested in water conservation and are looking to create a smart metering system.
Perhaps make something that can use existing water meters that are not already smart and have wifi? Some older ones do have a light that blinks once for every unit measured but no wifi.
Whatever you do, some otherwise-idiot will learn a way around and then push it out of spite. Good Luck.
Although your project has good intentions, you would need a microphone where every tap, toilet, shower is in the house.
So identifying what water flow rate/volume is identified with each water control device will be a very involved system just in the logistics field.
With many other sounds in the house, TV, Music, Talking, Pets, Vacuum Cleaners, Food Processors, usually much louder than a flip tap, or normal twist tap, identifying though all the "noise" will be difficult and more than a Arduino controller could process.
I see the value of your project, being able to find areas of water use that may be wasting water, or utilizing the commodity economically would be great.
Tom...
PS. You could start with a smartphone just recording the morning in a kitchen, to see if you can hear what you need.
PPS. You could try with temperature sensors connected to the outlet or valve body of your taps and valves, you may be able to see a noticeable change in temperature when water is flowing.
I vaguely recall reading about someone using piezo sensors to detect gas moving in a pipe. I'd guess that you could do the same thing with water, so if you need to gather data about different taps in the house, you might be able to have an Arduino sensing at each one.
wildbill:
I'd guess that you could do the same thing with water, so if you need to gather data about different taps in the house, you might be able to have an Arduino sensing at each one.
The big problem with water wastage is that water is so cheap it's not worth spending much money to avoid small amounts of waste.
I suspect that is true even in Australia - how much does 1000 litres of water cost?
Hi,
In Victoria Australia, Central Highlands Water;
75 kilolitres = $147.10 is my latest bill for water volume. 132 days
The account is stepped it starts at
$1.9210 per kilolitre.
then jumps to ;
$2.8378 per kilolitre.
What you have to realize in Australia, we have been through many droughts, and public water was under some very strict rules.
Hand water your lawn for 60minutes, even house numbers and odd numbers taking it in turns from day to day.
Now that they have been relaxed, the general population, including industries regard water as a limited resource and so a different attitude has developed.
20years or more ago, everybody had sprinklers in their front and back yards and also watered the "nature strip" between the property line and the road side.
I have not seen this in the city that I live in for 20years, most people get out in the evening and water for a while, or use popup sprinklers on timers.
The nature strip is left unwatered.
This attitude has meant that water resources have a lower loading on them, and CHW announced the other week, that most of their water reservoirs are at %100 ready for summer.
Something that has been hard to do with reduced rainfall.
Due to the recent and consistent rainfall within the region, a number of our reservoirs are at capacity.
This places our region's water supply in a strong position leading into the warmer weather, but we encourage our customers to use water efficiently and to be aware of the Permanent Water Saving Rules. These are a common sense set of rules that are applied every day of the year, to ensure everyone uses water efficiently.
What you have to realize in Australia, we have been through many droughts, and public water was under some very strict rules.
But it's still only $2.8 for 1000 litres. Compare that to the price of a litre of milk, or to the pre-tax price of a litre of petrol.
If you were losing 1000 litres a day that would only amount to about $1000 per year. You would not get much monitoring equipment for that when the cost of installation, etc is included. And for the sort of system the OP is thinking of the vast majority of the installations won't be wasting any water.
Robin2:
But it's still only $2.8 for 1000 litres. Compare that to the price of a litre of milk, or to the pre-tax price of a litre of petrol.
If you were losing 1000 litres a day that would only amount to about $1000 per year. You would not get much monitoring equipment for that when the cost of installation, etc is included. And for the sort of system the OP is thinking of the vast majority of the installations won't be wasting any water.
...R
I agree, but its the push for conservation, especially when we have had some pretty hard restrictions at times that drives the quest, so to speak.
The message to save water starts in Primary School.
I have to say if I was losing 1000litres a day, I would be looking for it, where is the water going to???
I rent, so I don't see the other fees on my water bill, I understand they are probably higher than my $147 just for water volume.
This is something that might be worth starting in Bar Sport.
Utilities around the world, Gas, Electricity, Petrol(Gas), Water, see who gets ripped off more than others..
The water utilities here are Government based Corporations.
Gas, and Electricity are owned by mainly overseas energy companies.
Tom...
