Indonesian Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Vol. 14, No. 3, June 2019, pp. 1171~1176

ISSN: 2502-4752, DOI: 10.11591/ijeecs.v14.i3.pp1171-1176  1171

Embedded real-time system for detecting leakage of the gas

used in iraqi kitchens

Husam Kareem
Directorate of Baghdad Education, Ministry of Education of Iraq, Iraq

Article Info ABSTRACT

Article history: A major issue that happens in kitchens of houses and/or restaurants is the
leakage of gas used as a fuel for cooker stove, which is commonly referred to
Received Sep 19, 2018 as LPG (liquefied petroleum gas). LPG leakage may lead to a serious fire or
Revised Nov 17, 2018 even a deadly explosion that might affect the surrounding people.
Accepted Feb 22, 2019 A substantial solution to avoid such disasters is by stopping its main cause.
Therefore designing a device capable of monitoring and detecting such gases
can minimize the dangerous and unwanted incidents by LPG leakage.
Keywords: This paper introduces a low cost and energy efficient real-time monitoring
system that able to sense different dangerous gases, specifically those used
Embedded systems for stove cooker. This system considers the pros of the previously introduced
Liquified petrolium gas systems and fixes the cons available in those systems. In addition,
LPG leakage the manufacturing cost has been taken into consideration. If the system
Monitoring systems senses any type of LPG gas (there is a gas leakage), it will react by making
Real-time systems three different actions. It will make an alert sound to notify the people around
the leakage place, send an SMS to two cell phones, and show, on an LCD
screen, the leakage locationt.
Copyright © 2019 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science.
All rights reserved.

Corresponding Author:
Husam Kareem,
Directorate of Baghdad Education (Karkh 3),
Ministry of Education of Iraq, Iraq.
Email: [email protected]

1. INTRODUCTION
In today’s world, where most systems are becoming ubiquitous, the people safety plays a major role
in all residential areas. Therefore, all expected, unwanted and dangerous, accidents that might happen should
be avoided. One of the most likely happen incidents are fires and explosions because of LPG leakage.
However, these accidents can be prevented by the early detection of its main cause (LPG leakage). It is
worthy to mention that the LPG is a combination of highly flammable chemical such as propane and
butane [1]. Nowadays, LP gas is widely used in houses for hot water, and food cooking. In addition, LPG has
increasingly used as a second alternative fuel for cars. Hence, the usage of the introduced system device is
not only limited to residential areas but also can be applicable in petrol stations that deals with such type of
gases. Therefore, there is a growing necessity for a system that can detect the leakage and notify authorized
people to fix it or at least keep it under control.
Besides the advantage of affordable cost, the system is designed to be highly scalable when
there is a need to sense different and near locations within the communication range of RF technology
(communication medium used in the design). In other words, the system can work as a single standalone
device in one location or it can be a complete network in different locations with the same building (e.g.
different apartments within the same residential building).
A real-time system is an attractive topic for both academic and industrial sections. Therefore, a wide
variety of systems have been researched and created for different aspects of life like LPG monitoring
systems [1], real-time sensing systems [2], healthcare system [3], smart lighting systems [4], tracking

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1172  ISSN: 2502-4752

systems [5], and so on. Since this paper is introducing a real-time LPG monitoring and locating system, the
work that has been introduced in the related scope will be explored in this section.
Majority of the existing LP Gas monitoring systems involves an alarm system, which is supposed to
function upon gas sensing in houses and/or commercial locations. An embedded system for detecting
hazardous gases is introduced in [6]. This system senses the surrounding area and if a hazardous gas is
detected, it makes an alert and sends an SMS to the authorized person. Moreover, the system is designed
using PIC microcontroller, which is not considered as contemporary device compared to the modern and
open source microcontroller boards such as Arduino. A smart system for gas detection is designed to use in
the area of that includes storage of natural gas is produced in [7]. The system measures the water and air
quality using low-cost sensors and Arduino microcontroller. Although this system has reliable data, since it
considers many factors during its measurements but because the system is designed for a specific
environment with specific characteristics, it will not have the same performance in an environment that
differs from the system’s intended environment. Gas detection and monitoring system have introduced as
embedded hardware prototype based on Android mobile platform [8]. This system using gas sensors to detect
the leak of LP Gas and transmit the sensed data to the ATmega 16 microcontroller, and then the
microcontroller will send the received data to an android mobile through Bluetooth module. The mobile is
equipped with an application which is able to control the main switches of the location and able to control the
exhaust fan. This system cannot consider as a reliable one since the leak might happen when the mobile is far
from the microcontroller, which means that it is already out of range of communication. More precautions
must be considered in such system since it is related to people safety and life. In addition, turning the
ventilation fan most likely involves a spark that in return can make an explosion in the case of continuous
leakage. This technical mistake is a serious drawback in this system. The same mistake has been included in
a system that designed for LPG monitoring and automatic booking of the Gas cylinder [9]. The system
included in its functionality that upon the leakage detection, besides notifying people, turning on the exhaust
fan which, as mentioned above, could lead to a serious and immediate explosion.
In the design of any embedded system, different aspects should be taken into consideration, besides
the system reliability and real-time response, the system cost is a significant factor. In other words, a perfect
but expensive system could make it limited to rich institutes. On the other hand, a cheap, low-quality system
is not the solution. Therefore, a reliable system and at the same time affordable for the majority of people
who are in need of it is the best compromise. Because of the above-mentioned reasons, this system is meant
to have an affordable value by the using low cost and open source microcontrollers that represent the
system's core. Open source microcontroller is a kind of hardware that has unrestricted software and designs
which is freely available for all users [10].
A number of LPG systems that have been introduced with the most optimized performance but they
did not take in consideration minimizing the energy consumption as possible. Moreover, keeping the cost as
low as possible which consequently lead to make it affordable for a higher number of end users. These two
key indicators beside the performance indicators mentioned above are considered in the system introduced by
this paper.

2. THE PROPOSED METHOD

In our daily lives, embedded systems can be easily fined everywhere. The number of embedded
systems is rapidly increasing particularly in real-time monitoring systems. Moreover, the market of
embedded systems is one of the fastest growing fields. As a definition, an embedded system is a dedicated
purpose computing system designed to perform special functions [11].
Real-time systems are the systems that its computations reliability and robustness not only based on
the accuracy of its result but also on its response time (the time when its results are issued) [8]. Real-time
systems can be divided into two main categories: hard real-time and soft real-time systems. Hard real-time
systems must always make a response to an event within the correct instant otherwise, it may lead to
dangerous consequences on human lives, which means that the system has failed to be reliable. In contrast,
soft real-time systems response time requirement is not as crucial as hard real-time. In other words, if the soft
real-time system has failed to meet the deadline, it will not lead to a catastrophe [8].
As a result, the embedded systems that include real-time constraints are known as real-time
embedded systems. In general, embedded and real-time systems consist of two main parts: software and
hardware components. The hardware mainly relies on a microprocessor or a microcontroller attached to other
devices such as I/O, LCDs, sensors, LEDs and so on. The software represents the driving force of the
embedded real-time system. This software is usually has a specific application program and it is loaded to a
ROM, EPROM, or Flash memory and when it is loaded, it will never change until it is required to be
replaced or reloaded [11].

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Indonesian J Elec Eng & Comp Sci ISSN: 2502-4752  1173

Monitoring system; some of them are related to performance aspects such as reliability, scalability,
response time, portability and some others might have an economic aspect like fabrication cost. In addition,
energy consumption can be considered the main factor that should be taken into consideration since it has a
reflection on both sides: economic and performance. It can affect the performance directly because many
real-time embedded systems are battery powered. On the other hand, it has an indirect effect on the economic
aspect because in different developing countries, particularly in Iraq, energy conservation has become a great
necessity since there is the inefficiency of electrical power [10].
The system introduced in this paper aim to decrease the fabrication cost by using open-source,
low-cost devices. Furthermore, part of the main components of the system will operate only upon event
detection (leakage of gas). Consequently, energy consumption by the entire system is reduced to the lowest
possible level. In terms of reliability, the system utilized three means to notify the people in charge about the
LP Gas leakage that are an LCD to show the leakage location, an alarm sound to notify the surrounding
people, and a text message that send to two authorized people telling them that a gas leakage is happening
and specify the leakage location. These three activities happen as a respond to LP Gas leak to guarantee a
very high reliability for the system.
Based on the system design characteristics mentioned above, it can be clearly deduced that the
system can achieve its design objectives, which are introducing a low-cost energy-efficient highly reliable
and scalable embedded real-time system, used for LPG leakage detection.

3. RESEARCH METHOD
The prototype design and implementation processes of the proposed system is presented in this
section. In general, any embedded system, in order to operate, requires an integration of two main parts,
which are hardware and software. The hardware represents the physical architecture of the system, whereas
the software involves the instructions and the protocols that drive and run the hardware components [10].

3.1. Physical Architecture

An open-source microcontroller platform is utilized to function as system's core. As we mentioned
before, the system can operate in a single place as a single device or it can work as a complete sensor
network that has different sensors distributed in different contiguous locations. Therefore, for the single
detecting device, which works in only one location, an Arduino micro is used as the system core. On the
other hand, when the system is designed as a complete sensor network, the system will have one central
microcontroller represented by Arduino Mega and two or more microcontrollers represented by Arduino
micro. In this case, the node that equipped with the Arduino Mega will function as the head (server) node for
the entire network while the nodes that are equipped with Arduino micro will run as normal (ancillary) nodes.
Moreover, a semiconductor type of sensors (MQ-6) is used in the system to play a major role in sensing and
detecting the LP Gas concentrations in the air which mostly a composed of propane and butane [12].
Furthermore, being cheap makes this sensor more suitable for the development of low-cost embedded
systems. The MQ-6 sensor is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. MQ-6 Gas sensor used for LPG detection

A GSM module, Piezo buzzer, and LCD are all equipped to the head node (the sensor node which is
built on the Arduino Mega) to provide different options that notify the authorized persons upon LPG leakage
detection. A block diagram that clarifies the flow of data through the normal sensor node is shown in
Figure 2 and server sensor node is shown in Figure 3.
Embedded real-time system for detecting leakage of the gas used in iraqi kitchens (Husam Kareem)
1174  ISSN: 2502-4752

Figure 2. The data flow of the ancillary sensor node

Figure 3. The data flow of the server sensor node

The system relies on Radio frequency (RF) technology as a communication medium to send/receive
data between sensor nodes (ancillary nodes) and the head node (server node). RF used in many electronic
applications since it does not require a line of sight.

3.2. Software
Since the main component of the system is the Arduino platform, which is controlling the operation
of the entire system, therefore, the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE) is used to develop
and evaluate the proposed system. In addition, different types of libraries that compatible with the Arduino
IDE are utilized such as LCD and GSM. It is worthy to mention that this software is freely available which
makes it very suitable for low-cost systems development.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Foremost, the system is designed to be highly applicable for the residential buildings (number of
units in the same vertical building). Therefore, as mentioned earlier, different contiguous locations can be
equipped with sensor nodes and a central node need to be installed at the management office to monitor the
entire building. A number of energy efficient routing algorithms for wireless sensor networks that have grid
topology can be utilized to transmit the data from ancillary nodes to the server node such as algorithms in
[13], [14] and [15].
In order to give a simple and clear image about the system operation, it will be divided into two
operation modes: standby mode when there is no leak and the activation mode when a leakage is detected.
During the standby mode, the MQ-6 sensor in each sensor node is monitoring the level of LPG concentration
in the air. The RF module is sending nothing to the server node and the piezo is not activated.
Upon leakage detection, the piezo buzzer would be activated immediately as well as the RF module
would communicate with the server node to notify the management that there is a leak in a specific location.

Indonesian J Elec Eng & Comp Sci, Vol. 14, No. 3, June 2019 : 1171 – 1176
Indonesian J Elec Eng & Comp Sci ISSN: 2502-4752  1175

Based on the mac address of each RF module that is equipped with the sensor nodes, the server node can
recognize which unit that has a leakage. In return, the server node will show on its LCD which unit that has a
leakage and at the same time, it will activate its piezo to notify the authorized people at the management
office. Moreover, using the GSM module, it will send SMS messages to two pre-defined phone numbers (the
numbers are preferred to be for the unit owners).

4.1. Power Reduction Strategy

In addition to using low energy consumption devices, a technique is used to minimize the power
consumption as low as possible. The idea is that when there is no leak in LP GAS, there is no need to operate
the piezo, even if it is in standby mode but it is still using some amount of current. Therefore, a transistor is
used as a switch between each piezo and its corresponding microcontroller. Once a leak is detected,
the transistor is activated and then the piezo is turned on making an alarm sound. By following this strategy,
the energy consumption for the entire system is minimized to its lowest possible level. Figure 4 shows a
schematic diagram of connecting the piezo to the transistor.

Figure 4. Transistor as a switch connected between the Arduino and the Piezo

5. CONCLUSION
The design and implementation process of a Low-cost LPG leakage real-time detection system is
discussed in this research. Since the undetected leakage or even late detection is highly probable can lead to a
serious explosion that might take lives. Therefore, such systems have earned a great necessity in vulnerable
locations especially kitchens of houses and/or restaurants. Taking into consideration the importance of such
system in all residential places. The presented system is developed using equipment with low cost and low
energy consumption leading to make the system affordable for the majority of people. In addition, the system
is highly scalable by adding more sensor nodes as ancillary nodes. Thus, this system outperforms other
ordinary systems by overcoming the defects available in previous work, reducing the fabrication cost and
energy consumption, being highly scalable using master /slave strategy between microcontrollers. Moreover,
being highly scalable can add an extra advantage to the system besides monitoring more locations, the system
can be developed easily to perform more functions since each sensor node is built based on its own
microcontroller so adding more functions to the node leading to adding more functions to the entire system.
As part of our future work, the system will be developed to include more functions such as anti-theft security
sub-system, temperature and humidity monitoring and control.

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BIOGRAPHIES OF AUTHORS

Husam Kareem was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1986. He received BSc degree from computer
engineering department, University of Baghdad, Iraq in 2008. Received MSc degree from
computer and embedded systems engineering in universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia in 2014.
His research interests are Embedded systems, Computer networks, and Wireless sensor
networks.

Indonesian J Elec Eng & Comp Sci, Vol. 14, No. 3, June 2019 : 1171 – 1176