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Product category: Potable water metering and distribution
News Release from: ABB Automation Tech (Instrumentation + Automation) | Subject: AquaMaster SMS
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial Team on 16 October 2006

Remote water metering with AquaMaster

The new enhanced ABB AquaMaster SMS battery operated flowmeter delivers measurement data from remote locations - via SMS messaging or the Internet - heralding a new era in water leakage management

In the past several years much of the world's attention has been focused on global warming, greenhouse effects and the conservation of precious natural resources Clean water is part of this latter group and the significant losses seen in most water networks represent a major concern

In direct response to this challenge and customer requirements to conserve drinking water, ABB has developed and commercialised a revolutionary new product for the water industry.

The new enhanced flow meter, AquaMaster SMS, delivers measurement data from remote locations - direct to customers via the Internet - heralding a new era in water leakage management.

The AquaMaster is a product on the cutting edge of technology with features and applications that are unique within the water conservation and distribution market.

This article traces the history of specific applications, their features and successes that have driven the development of the latest generation of metering devices.

It describes their place in today's modern potable water systems, monitoring water distribution and enabling revenue collection.

ABB introduced the AquaMaster flowmeter in 1999.

It has since come a long way from its basic idea of applying electromagnetic technology to a market dominated by mechanical flow meters.

Prior to its introduction, water companies only used electromagnetic devices on large pipe diameter applications such as district mains.

The idea of applying the same approach to revenue collecting applications was new.

AquaMaster sales volume has grown from 0 units back in 1998 to many thousands in 2005.

Now, in 2006, customers expect more from a flowmeter than just flowrate measurement.

ABB realized that customers were not interested in the instrument itself, but in the flowrate data, delivered to them as part of their management information system.

The new AquaMaster SMS, a member of the AquaMaster family of meters, fulfils these demands.

The battery-powered electromagnetic meter, the AquaMaster, established a new level of performance as compared to mechanical meters.

Water companies have been 'making do' with an accuracy of +/- 2 percent.

By using an ABB AquaMaster electromagnetic meter with an accuracy of +/- 0.5 percent for pipe sizes above DN100, the meter pays for itself in less than a month, simply by measuring and charging the water more accurately.

For example, exchanging a mechanical DN150 flowmeter, accurate to within +/- 2 percent, for an AquaMaster would save the operator around US$4,730 of revenue.

As a consequence, many customers are switching to AquaMaster as the flowmeter of choice, even in sizes as small as DN40.

Further savings and increased revenue come from the maximum and minimum flow rates, or operating range, of an electromagnetic meter compared with that of a mechanical meter.

Its unique low flow rate capability enables previously unrecordable minimal night flow rates to be properly metered, which would double the saving potential to US$9,000 per annum.

In addition to the headline improvement in accuracy, AquaMaster has many other benefits, which are inherent in electromagnetic measurement technologies such as.

* Absence of moving parts - eliminates the need for routine maintenance.

* Lower installation costs because the end user does not need valves to isolate the meter during maintenance and replacement.

* The possibility of being submerged in water or buried under a busy road without chambers further reduces whole life cost.

* The lack of moving parts also means that the accuracy of electromagnetic flow readings will not deteriorate through wear, whereas a mechanical meter's accuracy will deteriorate with age resulting in -under-reading.

An extremely high turndown ratio is needed to ensure that readings will be accurate at both high and low flows.

Today's AquaMaster meters boast an ISO-certified and Measuring Instruments Directive compliant turndown ratio of 1000:1!.

A novel hydraulic contour of the meter also makes it far less sensitive to hydraulic disturbances up or downstream, even if the meter is positioned, for instance, near a bend or a valve.

A variant of the AquaMaster family offers a range of options attractive to the end user depending on his particular needs.

Flow measurement is often accompanied by other equipment, such as pressure sensors, and the next obvious step was to integrate pressure sensing as an option.

Data logging is another common requirement, so the AquaMaster family offers an option of logging the flow-rate and pressure every 15 minutes.

By virtue of the digital connection between the flow measurement and the data logger, high resolution data can be logged at a rate not possible with traditional solutions.

This is much more significant than it first appears.

With a traditional external data logger solution, pulses are captured over the logging interval, but due to upper frequency limitations by the flowmeter only a limited number of pulses can be counted in the log interval.

So for a meter with a large turndown ratio, it is not uncommon to get measurement or "quantisation" errors of around 10 percent or more, the data being very stepped or "quantised" as a consequence.

AquaMaster, with its direct digital connection to the data logger, reduces quantisation associated errors to insignificant levels.

In addition, AquaMaster offers in a second channel high speed, high resolution logging at an interval of up to 15 seconds.

This is invaluable for capturing transients during network step testing.

Within water networks, step testing is a well established technique for localising water loss in a zoned distribution system.

It requires the establishment of zones where water can be supplied through a single meter after all boundaries and circulation valves have been closed.

Closure of a valve isolates a specific section of the zone.

A large drop in flow indicates a leak within that section.

Step testing with AquaMaster is far simpler, cheaper and faster than established practises.

It no longer requires a skilled technician with an external step-test data logger.

All that is necessary is a simple procedure and a person to close a valve at specific pre-agreed times.

Also, any disruption to water consumers is minimised by restricting the time a valve needs to be closed to only a few minutes.

Within the following week, the high resolution logger can be downloaded and analysed to identify the source of the water leak.

This step testing process is significantly enhanced by the use of radio communication to obtain meter data, which leads to the latest ABB enhancement, the AquaMaster SMS.

Traditionally, data is logged externally from the flow measurement and recovered manually by sending someone on site to download the data, or sometimes by retrieving the entire data logger and exchanging it with a second one.

More recently, customers have switched to using radio for meter reading.

The new ABB innovation is to equip AquaMaster S meters with the option of GSM SMS radio technology.

This product was initially released in late 2003 using GSM dial-up based technology.

In 2005 this feature was upgraded to use SMS text messaging to convey flow and pressure data.

Transmitter SMS text messages are automatically sent, typically once per day to conserve power in the case of a battery powered AquaMaster.

In the event of a fault, an SMS message is sent as an alarm, eg if the meter is being tampered with.

The AquaMaster also responds to SMS text messages sent to it, such as configuration changes or requests for specific data.

Up to three months of data can be stored internally.

Delivering measurement data to the customer.

Measuring and logging the flow and optionally pressure are only part of the equation.

Getting the collected data onto the customer computer, management information or leakage management system is the other part.

Discussions with key global customers showed that data users could be partitioned into 2 groups with different requirements.

1) Customers with an existing infrastructure and established water management system.

2) Greenfield customers who have measurement requirements but no back office system to handle the measured data.

One of the key design objectives was to make the system as easy as possible to configure.

To address both customer needs, ABB devised a solution based on delivering remote meter data via SMS text messages to virtually any database, using industry-standard programming mechanisms.

The SMS Logger Server delivers the data seamlessly to databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, MS Access, solving the data delivery issue for group 1.

For customers belonging to group 2, two options exist.

1) Install any supported database, and use the SMS Logger Server software from ABB, combined with third party software, to manage and display the flow data.

2) Use the same setup as in above, but use a web server to deliver the data via the Internet.

An example of such a server application is AutoChart from I+P Services, in the UK.

SMS data is received, either on an SMS engine connected to a PC via an ABB-provided SMS Gateway, or alternatively, for high numbers of meters, an X25 link direct from the SMS service provider.

In some applications security of information is critical.

To protect the data from eavesdroppers, AquaMaster SMS encodes the flow data with a two key encryption system.

The encryption algorithm, based on a well know public domain technique, is currently believed to be uncrackable.

Every AquaMaster in the world has a unique, hash encoded, service password, which changes every time it is used, protecting the first security key.

Received SMS logger data messages are deciphered by a Windows DLL provided by ABB.

The second key for unscrambling the coded message is produced by the secure ABB SMS Logger Server application.

With this two-key encryption procedure the customers can have total confidence in the security of the data delivered by their AquaMaster SMS flowmeters.

The ABB application handles all incoming and outgoing AquaMaster SMS messages and delivers the data to a database.

To make the system as universal as possible it uses industry-standard SQL 92 database queries supported by virtually all existing databases.

For newer, platform-independent databases, the ABB Server supports an XML-based scheme.

Connection to the database uses industry-standard Open Database Connectivity (ODBC).

Queries from the customer client to the flow meters use HTTP requests.

This makes it simple to setup and deliver AquaMaster data to virtually any database.

All ABB applications are based on .NET technology and will work on Microsoft Windows 2000 onwards.

One of the key design objectives was to make the system as easy as possible to configure.

Taking this to the ultimate, the designers achieved a self-configuring implementation, where any number of AquaMaster SMS flowmeters can be connected with zero setup effort of the ABB SMS Logger Server application.

All a customer is required to do is to enter the phone number of the server into the AquaMaster SMS flowmeter located in the field.

A daily data set will then automatically be delivered from it.

On larger scale systems with thousands of AquaMasters this has immediate time and cost saving benefits.

Case study showing measurement data transmitted via Internet.

AutoChart with an SQL server database was used in this solution, combined with the ABB SMS Logger Server application.

Being Internet-based, the information is made available worldwide to any registered user.

No proprietary software is required on the customer PC, just a web browser and an Internet connection.

AutoChart delivers information on the customer's AquaMaster flow meters, either singly or as a group, with data available in an easy-to-use graphical or tabular presentation format.

With Internet access it is possible, not only for the water utility to see the consumption profiles and revenue information, but if enabled, the same data may be accessed by the consumer.

Such a strategy opens up major possibilities for management of water usage and detection of leaks.

For instance, one user recently identified an abnormal usage of water that was caused by continuous automatic flushing of urinals.

By fitting simple motion detectors for controlling the flushing, the water consumption was reduced by over 30 percent.

AquaMaster SMS is also unique in that the volume totals from the instrument index register are also sent by SMS text message.

In AutoChart, these are displayed with the profile information and can also be displayed as daily consumption.

In effect, by combining AquaMaster SMS with AutoChart, ABB is now able to offer customers the electronic equivalent of a human meter-reader visiting the flowmeter every day to note the totaliser reading on the display - but automatically and over the Internet.

When the first AquaMaster meters hit the market in 1999, they were totally unique.

Now, some seven years later, ABB has raised the barrier in providing a total measurement data-delivery solution for remote metering for both existing customer information systems and for new Internet-based delivery for greenfield installations.

But staying ahead of the competition for the next few years will mean listening to customer requirements and continuing the vigorous process of innovation that has already brought the AquaMaster family this far.

Article provided for the ABB Review by Ray Keech and Terry Mizzi of ABB Stonehouse, UK, and Brian Hayes of ABB Automation Warminster PA, USA, with assistance from A Thomas of I+P Services for providing the AutoChart information.

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