Volume 7, Issue 4, April – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology

ISSN No:-2456-2165

Solar-Powered Fishpond Feeder with Real-Time

Water Quality Monitoring System
Frechelyn L. Valencia*, Jerlyn N. Brital, Kristian DaveAranas, Ronieto Mendoza
Electronics Engineering Department Caraga State University
Butuan City, Philippines

Abstract:- Automated fish feeding has been developed last two decades, the new system has ended a development
to automate food carrying and handling of fish products advancement in sensing technology like marine robotics for
and to automate the feeding of the fish to overcome feed continuously sampling oceans, rivers, and other bodies of
waste, malnourished or over fat fish and water pollution water with increased frequency of sampling at a lower cost
problems. The system includes a feeding mechanism, compared to traditional methods. Although fixed and
commercial water quality sensors (DO and pH sensors), portable sensor/meters increased the rate of data gathering;
a wireless communication system (GSM Module), and it also has some limitations like small coverage area.
the positioning system (GPS). All data like feeding Nowadays floating mobile vehicles can improve the
status, water quality parameters, location, and other sequential scale of monitoring the water quality. It can
important parameters were collected, processed, saved, provide real-time monitoring of freshwater, rivers, and
and stored in SD Card in the form of CSV (Comma- other water bodies to generate sustained observations[3-8].
separated values). The experimental results for the
feeding mechanism prove that the system is reliable in Intelligent systems are being applied in freshwater
terms of dispensing feeds based on the desired time and aquaculture to contribute to an increased and better
location. The system can monitor real-time the water production which reduced the expenses by monitoring the
quality and send directly the sample data thru GSM- water quality such as dissolved oxygen (DO), water
SMS technology. temperature (Ambient and humidity temperature), pH, etc.
Scientists from Jiangsu University China developed a
Keywords:- component; formatting; style; styling; insert. system that has the capacity for determining the various
water parameters in real-time by wireless data
I. INTRODUCTION transmission[9].Fish farming entails a big chunk of its
budget in the manual feeding of fish. Also, the number of
For the past three decades, fish farming became one of feeds usually differs as a result of human error (lesser of
the most growing food producers, which produces a more than) the required amount thus causing malnourished
majority of humankind’s direct consumption.[1] or over fat fish. The automatic fish feeder is designed to
In fish farming, a water quality monitoring system distribute the exact number of pellets at a specified time
plays an essential part as the farmers must balance and and location. This device fed the fish with the exact time
maintain the condition of the fishponds for the and amount inputted by the user, therefore preventing the
growth/health of the fish[2]. overfeeding of the fish [10].

The European Water Framework Directive has Moreover, any delay in the feeding process can affect
highlighted the necessity for water quality monitoring in the quality of the fish such as the size of the fish, less
the sea, lake, and freshwater areas. The tasks are performed maturity, and the condition of the fish. An automatic
using traditional laboratory analysis, fixed monitoring feeding system is a perfect solution to provide accurate, and
stations (buoys), and portable meters. Deploying water cost-effective food in every fishpond. By implementing an
quality monitoring instruments using buoy can allow a automatic feeding system proper, effective, and efficient
collection of the water’s properties physically, chemically, feeding could be reached[11].Hence, this study proposes an
and biologically. It will enable the temporal deviations in automatic feeding with a water quality monitoring system.
water quality to be characterized. The buoy system is It will automate the concept of automation and GSM
designed and integrates sensors for monitoring various technology and reduced supporting structure, capital, and
water quality parameters, such as temperature, water level, maintenance costs.
and dissolved oxygen. The data gathered using a buoy The unmanned self-controlled vessel is equipped with
system are transferred and sent to the data center where a storage area and sensors. A storage area contains fish
people can observe and monitor real-time the status of the food to dispense, and a sensor to monitor the water quality.
water. As a means of measuring the water quality, a manual A vessel/boat navigates autonomously through the
analysis in which the distributed water is sampled and guidance of GPS. It will travel through a target area,
manually analyzed with an off-line measurement. dispense the fish food, conduct water quality testing,
However, these traditional approaches are not applicable to preprocess data, and transmit the data into the pre-
sustain. programmed cellphone number. It will also identify the
The monitoring needed by environmental experts precise locations of the boat, where the system receives
because of its cost, the need for technical personnel, lesser information about each vehicle’s location[12].
frequency, high power consumption, and coverage. For the

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Volume 7, Issue 4, April – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
II. METHODOLOGY The surface vehicle is embedded with a solar panel.
The charge controller of a solar panel controls the charging
A. Schematic Diagram of the System and managing the batteries to generate the needed voltages.
The central part of the mobile surface vehicle is the Renewable energy systems – specifically solar power - are
microcontroller unit which consists of a hardware applied in various applications such artificial intelligence,
microcontroller and software program that enable and guide in rural electrification, or in residential applications among
the operation of the overall system. The system uses an others [16-24].
Arduino Mega 2560, an expandable Arduino
microcontroller that has the capability of present and future B. Prototype of the MSV
expansion of the system. It is an open-source, easy-to-use, The mobile surface (MSV) can be remotely controlled
and user-friendly prototyping platform, and programming or automated depending on the location and area covered
environment[13-15]. The data of the preprogrammed by the vehicle. The area is suitable only for remote-
commands downloaded to the microcontroller are being controlled operation if it is small and if there is an obstacle
preprocessed by the vehicle (MSV). The software program like floating materials that might damage the vehicle
uploaded into the memory of the microcontroller which set propeller, a casing, onboard sensors, and a feeding
the sensor node will measure the quality of water at a mechanism. While automatic operation fits only to a
specified time interval. Before the transmission, the data considerable wide area with no obstruction like floating
being gathered are copied to the SD card as backup data objects. The user/operator can design a plan for defining the
storage. Figure 1 shows the overall schematic diagram of coordinates for feeding and for checking the water quality
the system. in a given location. With these, deployment of the vehicle
would be easier, especially in gathering and determining
the data in areas difficult and dangerous to reach. Figure 2
shows the prototype of MSV wherein it is protected with an
intellectual property according to the policy of the
university [25].

Fig. 2: Prototype of MSV

Fig. 1: Overall schematic diagram of the system

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Volume 7, Issue 4, April – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
III. TEST RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS A. Water Quality Monitoring
Table 1 shows the water quality throughout the overall
During the navigation test, the mobile surface vehicle navigation testing of the boat. The average pH value is
moves from point to point assigned by the location 7.28 means that the fishpond’s pH level is neutral.
specified by the GPS. The vehicle with the sensors onboard According to the study [26] the aquatic animals can live
acquire the possible values of the water quality. The surface under the pH levels of 6.5 to 9.0. The study suggests that
vehicle will only test the water quality during the point the minimum amount of DO is 4-5ppm that support the
where the feeds is pumped out thru the dispenser. diverse fish population and generally averages at about 9.0
ppm in good fishing [24]. The level of DO during testing is
6.87ppm, the result suggest that the output value is in line
with the required level of DO in fishpond. The water
temperature is 30.19, humidity value is 80 and the ambient
temperature value is 31.

pH DO Water temperature Humidity Ambient temperature

7.29 7.09 30.19 80 31
7.28 7.16 30.19 80 31
7.28 7.06 30.19 80 31

7.29 6.85 30.19 80 31

7.29 7.04 30.19 80 31
7.29 6.61 30.19 80 31

7.28 7.02 30.19 80 31

7.28 6.44 30.19 80 31
7.28 6.68 30.19 80 31

7.28 6.77 30.2 80 31

Table 1. Water quality monitoring

B. Feeding timing of the positioning. The main concern and essential factors
To prove that the system was reliable, two experimental were the timing and positioning accuracy during the
tests were conducted which were the functionality, and feeding time.
validation of the timing, precise feeding, and the accuracy

Feeder's Positioning Accuracy in Average per 10 cycle

20
Displacement (meter)

15

10

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
No. of Cycle

Fig. 3: Feeder’s Positioning Accuracy

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Volume 7, Issue 4, April – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165

Feeding timing
Time of navigation (minute)

8
6
4
2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
FEED ON 7.1667 7.1667 7.1667 7.1667 7.1667 7.1667 7.1667 7.1667 7.1667 7.1667
FEED OFF 2.095 2.329 2.405 2.459 1.938 1.959 2.119 1.748 2.137 3.154
Time of feeding (minute)

FEED ON FEED OFF

Fig. 4: Time of feeding with respect to time of navigation

C. Testing of DO,pH and temperature sensor study showed that the water sampling results were good as
The aptitude of the sensors for dissolved oxygen, pH, it yielded better values of R2 of the linear plots between the
and temperature was evaluated by comparing its actual data two readings, the developed prototype, and the Horiba ®
values to that of a Horiba® probe, a commercial multi- Water Checker. Figure 5,6, and 7 shows the comparison of
parameter water checker. Synchronized measurements at a the three sensors.
particular sampling point were done during testing. The

DO
7.4
7.2 y = 1.0256x - 0.1721
7 R² = 0.9792
Horiba

6.8
6.6
6.4
6.2
6
6 6.2 6.4 6.6 6.8 7 7.2 7.4
Sensor

Fig. 5: DO sensor

pH
8.6
8.4 y = 0.1662x + 6.4617
R² = 0.9731
8.2
Horiba

8
7.8
7.6
7.4
7.2
7.2 7.4 7.6 7.8 8 8.2 8.4 8.6
Sensor

Fig. 6: pH sensor

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Volume 7, Issue 4, April – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165

Temperature
28
y = 1.2984x - 8.2492
27.8
R² = 0.9746
27.6
Horiba

27.4

27.2

27
27 27.1 27.2 27.3 27.4 27.5 27.6 27.7 27.8 27.9 28
Sensor

Fig. 7: Temperature sensor

IV. CONCLUSION REFERENCES

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