2015 International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications (ATC)

An Early Flood Detection System Using Mobile

Networks
Hung Ngoc Do, Minh-Thanh Vo, Van-Su Tran, Phuoc Vo Tan, and Cuong Viet Trinh
School of Electrical Engineering
International University, Vietnam National University - HCMC
Email:{dnhung, vmthanh, tvsu, vtphuoc}@hcmiu.edu.vn

Abstract—In this paper, an early flood warning system has the operational managers to decide a flood warning message
been studied and developed. The system consists of an early flood more quickly, precisely in real time. However, this research
warning station powered by solar energy, a monitoring center, did not bring out the way to transmit flood information to
and a notification system. The flood warning station is equipped
with the water level sensor and the precipitation sensor. The citizen. The short message service (SMS) was used in flood
data, which is received from sensors, will be stored in memory alerts in [6]–[8]. These systems used the same types of GSM
card and transmitted to monitoring center via GPRS protocol. modem to send the SMS messages which contain the water
The functions of monitoring center are to receive, analyse data level information measured from wireless water sensor, liquid
from the stations and send results to notification system where sensor or ultrasonic sensor. The users can receive the real time
warning can be generated to the considered residential areas.
The warning levels of flood can be set up easily by using the water level data in case that exceeds the predefined thresholds.
buttons in the circuit board or by using the SMS message from The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a migration
user’s mobile phone. A website was also created to display the step toward the third-generation mobile network [9]. Based on
river water level, rainfall and the predicted information for the the available Global System for Mobile (GSM) network, GPRS
next few hours. technology is relative fast and its service cost is reasonable,
Index Terms—flood, GPRS, sensor, water level, precipitation.
so it is a good candidate in term of transmitting and receiving
data from the flood warning station to data center or to
I. I NTRODUCTION
the Internet. In this paper, GPRS plays as a transmission
Climate change has been a serious problem which attracts method to exchange information between the warning station
the interest of many countries in the recent years. One of the and monitoring unit. The duration between two messages is
clear effect of climate change is flood which has happened set up when the system is installed and its values change
more frequently in many regions and caused the devastating according to the flood warning levels. The correlation between
impacts on human lives and livelihoods. Many flood warning the precipitation and the river water level depends on the
stations have been developed and installed in prosperous location where the system is installed. Based on the measured
countries but the manufacturing cost is usually too high to data statistics during a long period at a considered area, the
be practical in developing countries. Therefore, building an lag time, is determined from the beginning of a rain to the
efficient flood warning system while maintaining reasonable beginning of an increase of the river water level, will be
production cost has been a meaningful mission for many calculated. Thus, we use the data from water level sensor, rain
researchers and manufactures. gauge to predict the warning level, and lag time to estimate
Various flood detection methods have been introduced in the occurrence time of the forthcoming flood.
the past decades. The authors in [1]–[3] analyzed the images The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The system
captured by satellite in different ways to detect the areas description which details the methodology to design and
where flood occurred. These techniques are only useful in implement the early flood detection system is presented in
flood localization but they can not predict whether flood occurs section II. Section III shows the operation of the designed
or not in the next hours. M. Oprea proposed a prototype system and the procedure to set up the initial parameters. The
intelligent system for flood warning and alert in real time [4]. results of system testing are described in section IV. Finally,
That system uses an ARM microcontroller, Marvell 88F6281 section V concludes the paper.
and the Unix FreeBSD for interface and data integration. To
make decision, the data will be transmitted from hydrological II. S YSTEM D ESIGN
station in real time via radio communication. E.Tate and K. The system model is described in figure 1, which consists
Cauwenberghs introduced a flood warning system relied on of three main parts: station flood warning, flood center and
web-based approach for the Demer basin in Belgium [5]. notification system. The flood warning station contains rain
In this system, a cluster of servers will collect and process gauge sensor, water level sensor and uses solar battery as
data from the hydrological observation stations in real time main power supply. The data received from sensors will be
and the available results can be displayed on client computer stored in memory card and transmitted through GSM module.
by remote access. The advantage of this system is to help Besides, the system has a flood center with a computer for

978-1-4673-8374-5/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE 599

 2015 International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications (ATC)

voltage values to components of the system. The switching

regulator LM2576, LM2577 and linear regulator AMS117 are
chosen to build the voltage regulators with outputs ±12V,
5V and 3.3V. LM2576/77 are monolithic switching regulator
ICs that supply useful functions such as boost (LM2577),
buck (LM2576) and buck-boost (LM2576) converters, so we
can have the stable voltage sources even in the low battery
condition.
Fig. 1: System Overview A. WL400 Water Level Sensor

monitoring sensor data and sending the warning message to

notification system which is equipped a audio power amplifier
and loudspeaker to generate warning message to residential
areas.

FP
62/$5%$77(5<

FP

92/7$*(5(*8/$725
FP

9 9 9
FP

&855(17 
92/7$*( 6'&$5' (a) WL400 Sensor (b) Water Level Testing
&219(57(5

Fig. 3: Water Level Sensor.

0,&52&21752//(5 *356
:$7(5/(9(/
81,7 02'8/( Water level sensor WL400 shown in figure 3(a) supplies
high precision measurement even in the harsh environments. A
dynamic temperature compensation system is equipped inside
5($/7,0(
submersible pressure transducers to ensure highly accurate
5$,1*$8*(
&/2&. measurement for widely temperature range. WL400 contains
 of a solid-sate pressure sensor protected by submersible stain-
 less steel. There are two-wire 4-20mA high-level outputs
Fig. 2: Station Block Diagram inside water-resistance cable to connect from sensor to moni-
toring device.
Figure 2 describes the diagram of the warning flood sta- To evaluate the performance of water level sensor, a mea-
tion model with the heart is an ATmega which is a low suring tape is used to measure distance as a reference value
power microcontroller based on the RISC architecture, and to compare to the result distance displayed on the computer
can provide many necessary functions like External Interrupt, screen. Figure 3(b) shows the method to test the sensor.
Timer/Counter, and UART. This station gets data from the For converting data received from the water level sensor, an
water level sensor and rain gauge sensor, then stores them Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) with 10-bit resolution
in the memory card and forwards into the Internet via GPRS is used, which the minimum value and the maximum value
protocol. Besides, the station is embedded with a real time are set to ground and source, respectively. To transmit data,
clock integrated circuit (IC) to indicate when exactly the data serial communication is set up between Prited Circuit Board
is recorded. Since the output signal from the water level (PCB) and computer with terminal to display data on computer
sensor is current and the microcontroller unit only capable screen. Moreover, we configure that sample time to get data is
of converting from voltage to binary data, a current voltage 1 second. The minimum resolution of the water level sensor is
converter circuit is used. 1.7cm, but in this project, we set the resolution as 2cm because
In order to have flexible capability of choosing the instal- it still meets the system requirement while the program is
lation locations, we use a battery charged by solar power for simple to implement.
supplying the energy for the whole system. However, output
voltage from battery is not always stable and the components B. RG200 Rain Gauge
require different working voltage values, so the different volt- Rain Gauge is an equipment to measure total rainfall
age regulator circuits are required to provide various necessary with high reliability, and can operate for many years with

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 2015 International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications (ATC)

high sustainability. To supply reliable and low-cost rainfall consumption current is about 80mA. So this system can work
monitoring, sensor is built based on high impact ultraviolet continuously at least 87.5 hours without solar energy charging.
(UV) protected plastic. For each certain amount of rainfall,
III. S YSTEM O PERATION
a sealed reed inside the sensor will generate a mechanism
contact closure.
/ŶŝƚŝĂů
WĂƌĂŵĞƚĞƌ
^ĞƚƚŝŶŐ

tĂƌŶŝŶŐ>ĞǀĞůϭ
ĂƚĂĨƌŽŵ ŽŶƚƌŽůůĞƌ tĂƌŶŝŶŐ>ĞǀĞůϮ
^ĞŶƐŽƌƐ
tĂƌŶŝŶŐ>ĞǀĞůϯ

Fig. 4: Rain Gauge /ŶƚĞƌŶĞƚ ^D^ ĂƚĂďĂƐĞ


We use the rain gauge sensor has the radius RRG = 16.5cm
as in figure 4. It generates an interrupt signal when 0.2mm of Fig. 5: System Operation
rain falling in the sensor area. For evaluation the rain gauge
sensor performances, the falling edge of external interrupt is Figure 5 shows the operation of our system. The microcon-
used to recognize signal from sensor and serial communication troller interfaces with the sensors to measure the data which
for connecting between PCB and computer is set up to display will be used for flood detection. We define three warning levels
data on the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screen. based on the river water level because it is the main factor
affects to the flood occurrence. The threshold values, set up
C. GSM Module by software or buttons, for each warning level depend on the
We use Sim900A, a dual-band GSM/GPRS module, which hydrology characteristics of the location where the station is
supplies fully modem serial port used for data transmission and installed. Corresponding with the data, which is received from
interface with MCU by attention (AT) commands. For testing the sensor, the controller will release the different levels of
the method to transmit data into the Internet, GPRS is used warning. For each warning level, the controller will establish
as the connection protocol, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol the sampling time for transmitting data on the Internet and
(HTTP) and GET method are used to send and display data saving data on database. The SMS message contains level of
on the website. The HTTP is an application protocol for flood alert also will be sent to the predefine mobile numbers.
distribution, collaboration, hypermedia information system and
the GET method is a way to send data through Uniform
&ŝŶĚƚŚĞǁĂƚĞƌ
Resource Locator (URL) link on browser address. ŽůůĞĐƚĚĂƚĂ ^ĞƚƚŚĞǀĂůƵĞƐŽĨ
ůĞǀĞůʹ ƌĂŝŶĨĂůů
ƐƚĂƚŝƐƚŝĐƐ
ĐŽƌƌĞůĂƚŝŽŶ
ĮL ζ
D. Memory Card Module
Memory card is used to store data collected from the sensors
rain gauge and water level. Because data is written as text ^ĞƚƚŚĞŵĞĂƐƵƌŝŶŐ
^ĞƚƚŚĞǁĂƌŶŝŶŐ ƉĞƌŝŽĚŝŶĐƌĞŵĞŶƚ
document format and do not contain many data types, the size ǁĂƚĞƌůĞǀĞůƐ ŽĨĞĂĐŚǁĂƌŶŝŶŐ
of data file is set as 1kb and a 2GB memory card is enough to ůĞǀĞů

store all collected data for a long period. The data is written on
memory card consists of two parts, the folder file and the data Fig. 6: Initial Setting
file. Assuming that data is saved on memory card each 10-
minute period, we have total 140 data files each day. The size Before installing the system, we must set up the initial
of folder file and data file are 11200 bytes but size that data parameters which depend on the considered location. This
taken on card is 4.37MB. With the 2GB memory, the memory procedure is described in figure 6. Firstly, we need to collect
card is able to save data more than 437 days continuously. data statistics about water level, rainfall over long duration of
the area where we want to install the system. Although there
E. Power Consumption are several factors have effect on the water level, but we only
The whole system uses battery of accumulator with capacity take the rainfall parameter into account because it plays the
12V-7Ah as main power supply. The total currents are ap- key role. Then, we find the correlation between river water
proximately 206mA and 75mA in two operation modes: with level and rainfall which can be expressed in the equation as
and without GPRS transmission. Because the GPRS mode follows:
accounts for about 10% of total working time, the average H(t + ζ) = H(t) + Σi=0 i=−n αi Γi , (1)

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 2015 International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications (ATC)

where H is the river water level, ζ is the lag time, Γ is using GSM module as in figure 8. The content of each
the rainfall, and α is the coefficient which describes the message includes the warning level, the measured data, and
correlation between water level and rainfall. The important the predicted occurrence time of flooding. Whenever the water
parameter for flood warning, ζ, depends on the geographical level exceeds the threshold, the station immediately sends the
and hydrological conditions of the considered area. This value data to the Internet that flood control unit could recognize that
is approximately 2 hours for Tuy Loan river which locates flood will occur. The users can view the necessary information
in central of Vietnam [10]. Next, we set up the thresholds easily by accessing the website in which data is displayed in
corresponding to warning water levels. Whenever the water bar graphs in figures 9 and figure 10.
level exceeds a predefined threshold, a warning message will
be released. Finally, set the measuring interval Ts which de-
termines the duration between two successively measurements
for each warning level in the following equation:
Ts = Ts − ki Δt, (2)
where Δt is the increment unit, ki ∈ {0, 1, 2, 3} is the warning
level. That equation means the higher water level, the shorter
duration between two measurements, so we will have more
accurate predicted results.
IV. R ESULT A ND D ISCUSSION
In this section, the results of our application test are shown
and discussed. We set up the conditions for testing in the
laboratory because it takes several months for having the
test results in reality. The figure 7 shows the overall PCB,
which has compact size 110x176 mm. All the modules and
a sequence of header pins for connecting with the sensor are
integrated on the board. The FT232 and RS232 are embedded
to interface with computer and text LCD to display system
status or sensor data values.

Fig. 8: Message Content

30

25

20
Rainfall (Cm)

Fig. 7: Overall Prototype

15

There are three buttons to set up the values of river water

10
levels corresponding to the warning levels, lag time ζ, and
interval for transmitting, saving data. Depending on the region
5
where station is installed, the user is able to set up the first
warning value of each parameter and the times of transmitting
0
data in predefined period. If the user does not set up time 9:20 9:30 9:40 9:50 10:00 10:10 10:20 10:30 10:40
to send data in case risk of flood, the station will decrease Time
automatically time between two consecutive times of sending
data by using default value. Fig. 9: Rainfall Graph
When the station is installed, this system will record the
water level and precipitation value from the corresponding Figure 9 displays the measured values of precipitation.
sensors. After predefined period, the data will be saved on While the predicted data including the water level and occur-
memory card for statistics in long time and transmitted by rence time are plotted in figure 10. This prediction based on

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performance by using some available sensors to measure the

80 data of humidity, stream flow for higher accurate prediction.
Furthermore, the combining data analyses of several warning
70
stations can also bring the wider view of flood prediction of
60 the large geographical areas.
Water Level (Cm)

50 R EFERENCES
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