SSRG International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering (SSRG-IJECE) - Special Issue ICTER Mar 2019

IOT BASED SMART OIL SKIMMER ROBOT FOR THE MARINE OIL SPILL
K..MANOJ KUMAR1, R.GOWTHAM2, J.G.KISHORE KUMAR3, R.PANDI PRABAKARAN4
1,2,3
B.E Student Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, 4 Faculty of EEE,

Mangayarkarasi College of Engineering, Paravai, Madurai, Tamil Nadu,India.

Abstract - Oil Skimmer Robot is a device which can be 2. PROPOSED SYSTEM

used for ocean purification by removing the oil from
water surface. The system uses a photovoltaic powered 2.1 Node MCU ESP8266:- Node MCU is an open
conveyor belt to propel itself and collect oil. The flexible source IoT platform. It includes firmware which runs on
conveyor belt softly rolls over the ocean’s surface, the ESP8266 Wi-Fi SoC from Espressif Systems, and
absorbing oil while deflecting water because of its hardware which is based on the ESP-12 module.
hydrophobic properties. The photovoltaic cells generate
enough electricity to keep the fleet moving for several The term "NodeMCU" by default refers to the firmware
weeks and provide the energy to propel the vehicles rather than the development kits. The firmware uses
forward. As the head moves through the water the the Lua scripting language. It is based on the eLua project,
conveyor belt constantly rotates and sucks up pollution. and built on the Espressif Non-OS SDK for ESP8266. It
The belt is then compressed to remove the oil. As the uses many open source projects, such as lua-
clean part of the belt comes out of the head it cjson and SPIFFS.
immediately begins absorbing oil, making the collection
process seamless and efficient. This process is more 2.2 ESP8266 Arduino Core
streamlined than current ocean-skimming technologies
because the robots can operate autonomously and don’t
need to return to the shore for constant maintenance. As Arduino.cc began developing new MCU boards based
on Non- AVR processors like the ARM/SAM MCU and
Key Words oil spill, environmental pollution, oil used in the Arduino Due, they needed to modify
skimmer, Nano belt, apps and remote control,water the Arduino IDE
pump motor, solenoid valve So that it would be relatively easy to change the IDE to
support alternate toolchains to allow Arduino C/C++ to be
1. INTRODUCTION
compiled for these new processors. They did this with the
introduction of the Board Manager and the SAM Core.
In an era of increasing environmental concern, oil pollution
arising either from marine accidents or from routine ship A "core" is the collection of software components required
operations (tanker loading and unloading, etc.) is a major by the Board Manager and the Arduino IDE to compile an
threat for the marine environment. According to survey, Arduino C/C++ source file for the target MCU's machine
Crude oil and refined fuel spills from tanker ship accidents language. Some ESP8266 enthusiasts developed an
have damaged vulnerable ecosystems in Alaska, Gulf of Arduino core for the ESP8266 WiFi SoC, popularly called
Mexico, Galapagos Islands, France, Sundarbans, the "ESP8266 Core for the Arduino IDE". This has become
Ogoniland, and many other places. The quantity of oil a leading software development platform for the various
spilled during accidents has ranged from a few hundred ESP8266-based modules and development boards,
tons to several thousand tons. Oil spills at sea are generally including NodeMCUs.
much more damaging than those on land, since they can
spread for hundreds of nautical miles in a thin oil slick Features:
which can cover beaches with a thin coating of oil. This
project helps us with the task of ocean cleanup in case of Finally, programable WiFi module.
massive oil spills. Oil skimming aqua robot helps to  Arduino-like (software defined) hardware IO.
segregate oil layer above water.  Can be programmed with the simple and
powerful Lua programming language or Arduino
Besides corrosion of oil pipes poor maintenance of IDE.
infrastructure, spills or leaks during processing at  USB-TTL included, plug & play.
refineries, and accidental discharge from tankers or vessels  10 GPIOs D0-D10, PWM functionality, IIC and
and less due to sabotage, vandalisation of the oil SPI communication, 1-Wire and ADC A0 etc. all
infrastructure, and theft of oil [5]. It was reported that up to in one board.
20 miles.

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 SSRG International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering (SSRG-IJECE) - Special Issue ICTER Mar 2019

Don’t forget to waterproof the case (and joints) using any

suited epoxy adhesive.
M 2.4 DC MOTOR
1 A DC motor in simple words is a device that converts
electrical energy (direct current system) into mechanical
energy. The very basic construction of a DC motor contains
a current carrying armature which is connected to the
supply end through commutator segments and brushes.
Relay
Driver The armature is placed in between north south poles of a
circuit Relay M permanent or an electromagnet as shown in the diagram
above. As soon as we supply direct current in the armature,
Driver
circuit
2 a mechanical force acts on it due to the electromagnetic
effect of the magnet.

A DC motor’s speed can be controlled over a wide range,

Power using either a variable supply voltage or by changing the

Node
strength of current in its field winding.
supply
unit MCU Relay
ESP8266 Driver
circuit 2.5 Relay Module

A relay is an electrically operated switch that can be turned

on or off, letting the current go through or not, and can be

M
controlled with low voltages, like the 5 V provided by the
Node Mcu ESP8266 pins. Controlling a relay module with

3
the Arduino is as simple as controlling any other output as
we’ll see later on. This relay module has two channels
Wifi (those blue cubes). There are other models with one, four
mobile and eight channels. This module should be powered with
Module 5V, which is appropriate to use with an Arduino. There are
other relay modules that are powered using 3.3V, which is
ideal for ESP32, ESP8266, and other microcontrollers.

Fig -1: Block diagram of the system 2.6 Oil Skimmer

Skimmers are often used in conjunction with booms. A

2.3 Water Pump Motor skimmer is a device that collects and removes oil from the
surface of the water. Skimmers can be towed, self-
Compact, submersible water pumps are mostly used on air
propelled in river currents, or even used from shore. Many
coolers, aquariums, and fountains. If the pump runs out of
types of skimmers are available for use, depending on the
water and continues to operate — an issue known as dry
kind of oil spilled and the weather conditions. Disc
running — it can become damaged. This circuit protects
skimmers are floating skimmers with a series of rotating
submersible water pumps from dry running with the help of
discs that remove floating oil and fuel from the water. Disc
associated level electrodes. The circuit detects the absence
skimmers are available in a variety of sizes and are suitable
of water and monitors the water level to prevent dry
to use on ponds, or in the ocean, sumps, pits, dams, rivers,
running from occurring. The water pump guard electronics
harbour and marinas.
consist of two level electrodes, a water level detector, an
electromagnetic relay, and the relay driver circuitry.
Supporting components are necessary to prevent restarting
if the pump guard is used in turbulent water. The
recommended supply voltage is 5 V. While it is possible to
run the unit off of a higher voltage, minor modification is
required. The finished electronics can be housed into a
minuscule case (the level electrodes, formed from two
short-length rigid copper wires, pass out through the case).

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SSRG International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering (SSRG-IJECE) - Special Issue ICTER Mar 2019

2.7 solenoid valve from https://github.com/blynkkk/blynk-library/releases ,

and follow along with the directions there to install the
A solenoid valve is an electromechanical device required libraries.
in which the solenoid uses an electric current to generate
a magnetic field and thereby operate a mechanism which
regulates the opening of fluid flow in a valve. 3.0 Calculations:-
T = total oil collected by skimmer in one rotation
Solenoid valves differ in the characteristics of the electric
current they use, the strength of the magnetic field they R= radius of disc of oil skimmer(cm)
generate, the mechanism they use to regulate the fluid, and
t = thickness of oil film(mm)
the type and characteristics of fluid they control. The
mechanism varies from linear action, plunger- R = 6cm
type actuators to pivoted-armature actuators and rocker
t= 1mm
actuators. The valve can use a two-port design to regulate a
flow or use a three or more port design to switch flows T = Π × R2 × t = Π × (6)2 × 0.001 = 0.113 ml
between ports. Multiple solenoid valves can be placed
R= rate of oil collected
together on a manifold.
R = T × RPM = 0.113 × 50 = 5.65 ml/min
Solenoid valves are the most frequently used
control elements in fluidics. Their tasks are to shut off,
release, dose, distribute or mix fluids. They are found in
many application areas. Solenoids offer fast and safe 4.0 Test Result
switching, high reliability, long service life, good medium
compatibility of the materials used, low control power and RATE OF
compact design. SR. OIL And COLLECTED TIME OIL
NO Water OIL (ml) (min COLLECTED
SPILLED
(ml)
1 239 180 3.2 3800ml/ h
min
2 475 360 7.5 3800ml/h
min
3 950 842 15 3800ml/h
min

5.0 CONCLUSION

A swarm of sea robots can be used in

collecting an oil spill in the sea more successfully and
efficiently than most of the other methods and save the
environment from a real threat. This way it will be possible
to reduce human intervention and enhance accuracy even in
the most hostile environmental conditions. Using swarm of
sea robots instead of using barges specially in collecting
small oil spills will save money and time.
2.8 Android Application:- Blynk for NodeMCU As future extension of work, design of chassis of the robot
with most of the components considered for integration on
Blynk is a Platform with IOS and Android apps to control a single PCB, dispatching algorithm and partition algorithm
Arduino, Raspberry Pi and the likes over the Internet. It's a could be implemented.
digital dashboard where you can build a graphic interface
5.0 References
for your project by simply dragging and dropping widgets.
Join the most popular IoT Platform to connect your
devices to the cloud, design apps to control them, and [1] Emmad Mohammed H. Zahugi, Mohamed M Shanta,
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ESP8266. Download the latest release Mr.Siddarth Lodha , Mr.Nikhil Vaidya , “Design And

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SSRG International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering (SSRG-IJECE) - Special Issue ICTER Mar 2019

Fabrication of Oil Skimmer” , International Research

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