IIITM Kerala and IBM India Develop Real-Time Water Quality Measurement System

Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management – Kerala (IIITM-K) and IBM has announced the development of a real-time water quality management system - 'Swatchpaani'. The system, powered by IBM’s Watson Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, will continuously monitor water quality and measure temperature, pH and the presence of various metal/non-metal substances in the water, to ensure standard levels are not exceeded as prescribed by agencies.

The proposed solution will compose of Libelium, signal conditioning boards and sensors and Raspberry Pi for connecting these to IBM Bluemix Cloud services and Watson IoT platform for device and sensor data management, analysis and visualization. The system will support data analysis in real-time and trigger alerts if there are anomalies in the water samples. The project will also incorporate a pre-screening mechanism to test the water quality of mobile water distribution systems.

"The conventional method of testing water quality is often inaccessible and time consuming. In this context, Swatchpaani offers a convenient, mobile, quick and cost effective solution for the pre-screening of water samples. The extensive lab tests may be mandated only when the pre-screening signals a potential threat." said Dr. Asharaf, Principal Investigator, Swatchpaani Project, Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management – Kerala (IIITM-K).

"The IBM Watson IoT platform is an easy-to-use, secure and scalable solution which provides seamless integration with various IoT devices to build specialized, integrated solutions to solve industry and business challenges. The Swachpaani project is one such result on Watson IoT that demonstrates the impact technology can bring to the life of an individual. IBM India continues to work with academia to create useful and meaningful innovation based on Watson technologies.” said Devkant Aggarwal, Manager, University Relations, IBM India.