Water level sensing: State of the art review and performance evaluation of a low-cost measurement system

Nowadays, the management of water is of paramount importance for modern societies due to the high water-availability requirements. The application of water management schemes requires the installation of water level data-acquisition systems in multiple, geographically isolated large-scale storage tanks of water distribution networks. Existing techniques for liquid level sensing have either been applied over a relatively small measurement range, or require special scientific equipment of high cost, or they are not convenient for transportation, installation and long-term maintenance in multiple large-scale water storage tanks of water distribution networks in cities, communities, etc. In this paper, a review of prior art on liquid level sensing is initially presented. Then, the operational characteristics and performance of a novel capacitive-type water level measurement system are investigated through simulations and experimental tests conducted in two water storage tanks of a city-scale water distribution network. It is demonstrated that the proposed capacitive water level measurement system achieves equivalent performance with that of a commercially-available ultrasound water-level sensing device and simultaneously exhibits a much lower manufacturing cost.