Dr. Sachin Chaudhari’s students Tanmay Bhatt (UG 2020, ECD); Krishna Singh (UG 2021, ECD); Ritik Yelekar (PG 2023, ECD) and Ankit Kriti (PG 2023, ECD) were awarded the TIH-IoT CHANAKYA Fellowship. The team’s research was on a smart, IoT-enabled solution for monitoring borewell water levels. Currently, there doesn’t exist an automated, low-cost IoT solution in the market to measure the water level in borewells mainly due to the dimensions of these borewells. The existing technologies majorly include manual methods like a conductivity probe, or a wired piezoelectric sensor which is lowered into the borewell column but these are not scalable for deeper borewells, not to mention the need to go and take readings again and again. The proposed device will sit atop the borewell and measure the water level inside these borewells automatically at periodic intervals and then publish this data on the cloud so that the end user can access it on a mobile dashboard anywhere, anytime at a moment’s notice.

Here is the summary of the research work: The high rate of groundwater usage has resulted in a rapid decline in groundwater levels, which has necessitated its monitoring. This paper focuses on estimating the groundwater level inside borewells remotely and in real-time using the Internet of Things (IoT). For this, a solution is proposed which is based on string tension and does not require any electrical components to be lowered into the borewell. The solution provides a completely automated, real-time, reliable, and IoT-enabled alternative to existing methods for borewell water monitoring. The proposed approach is compared with an ultrasonic sensor-based approach in a controlled environment as well as in a tank. Additionally, four nodes were deployed in a small educational campus in the Indian city of Hyderabad to ascertain its usability and reliability in practical situations. The observations from the data collected over a month show that the proposed low-cost solution is reliable and has a good performance in the field.

Fellowship homepage – https://tih.iitb.ac.in/programs/hr-skill-development/tih-iot-chanakya-fellowship-program-2023/

TIH Foundation for IoT & IoE (TIH-IoT) has been set up as a Section-8 company (not-for-profit) by IIT Bombay under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS). It was implemented by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India.

TIH-IoT focuses on creating a self-sustained effort towards cutting-edge innovation through continuous research leading to a robust ecosystem consisting of entrepreneurship in advanced technology and innovation backed by the brightest minds in the country. The goal is to help India become a leader in technology-led economic growth.

April 2024