International Journal of Trend in Research and Development, Volume 4(3), ISSN: 2394-9333

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Design of Remote Operating for Smart Fish Farm

Using MQTT 1Prof. Kyoo Jae Shin and 2Muhammad Akbar,

1,2Department of ICT. Creative Design, Busan University of Foreign Studies, Busan, South Korea

Abstract— Internet of Things (IoT) is the new revolution in

the world of industry. It will give tremendous of benefit to the

human activity and continuously growing rapidly along with

the development of internet technology. This paper attempts to

develop a fully automatic control system of a smart fish farm

by using IoT technology with android mobile application. In

this system, we propose to build a smart fish farming system

that can monitor several sensors such as: oxygen level,

temperature, pH, and water level. It also provide a regulation

of the water flow of the aquarium by using Arduino platform

and MQTT communication. The proposed system is a very

powerful to create a natural environment of fish to grow and

life. Moreover, this system has main advantage which is can

minimize the human effort for the fish farming.

Keywords— Internet of Things; Sensors; Arduino Platform;

MQTT Communication; Android Mobile Application

I. INTRODUCTION

Internet of Things is the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and sense or interact with their internal states or the external environment and the confluence of efficient wireless protocols, improved sensors, cheaper processors, and a bevy of start-ups [1]. IoT make it possible for computational devices such as sensors and actuators to build an integration and communication each others and working as a single system.

The number of Internet-connected devices surpassed the number of human beings on the planet in 2011, and by 2020, Internet-connected devices are expected to number between 26 billion and 50 billion [2]. According to industry analyst firm, International Data Corporation (IDC), the installed base for the Internet of Things will grow to approximately 212 billion devices by 2020, a number that includes 30 billion connected devices. IDC sees this growth driven largely by intelligent systems that will be installed and collecting data - across both consumer and enterprise applications [3].

By understanding the current development of IoT, this paper propose an autonomous system of fish farm that connected and controlled by IoT technology. With the rapid growth of devices that connected to the internet, IoT will bring a transformation to the society about an efficiency and productivity improvement. Our aim is to reduce the human effort for the fish farm as well as improving the productivity, efficiency, and easiness for growing fish.

Smart fish farming is a new invention in the world. This smart aquarium can perform autonomous control for the water circulation as well as monitoring several important indicator in the aquarium for the fish living such as oxygen level, temperature, pH and water level. Water circulation in fish farming is very important to maintain the purity of water. In this system we use centrifugal pumps and electrical valve that possible to control whether autonomously or remotely from the internet. This electrical valve is specially designed for the flow regulation in the aquarium. As the water flow is the major requirement in this project, it needs an extra care to be taken

for pumping the water to the correct level with appropriate pH level, oxygen content and removing the sludge from the aquarium [4].

In this system, all sensor indicators are possibly monitored from the internet. Here, we also built an android mobile application to display the data. In the controller side, we use an Arduino platform. Arduino will maintain the control of actuators which are in this system pumps and electric valves as well as acquire the sensors data which are water level and temperature. In order to obtain accurate data measurement, this system uses Oxyguard sensor equipment to measure oxygen, pH, and temperature in the aquarium.

Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) is a messaging protocol that is lightweight enough to be supported by the smallest devices, yet robust enough to ensure that important messages get to their destinations every time. With MQTT devices such as smart energy meters, cars, trains, satellite receivers, and personal health care devices can communicate with each other and with other systems or applications [5]. Here, MQTT will be supported by JSON data format in order to improve efficiency when transferring data from Arduino to the server.

The Data Flow Diagram (DFD) of the system is shown in the figure 1. In this system, devices means sensors, electric valves, and pumps will give data and controlled by Oxyguard and Arduino. Later on, devices will be connected to the broker since MQTT protocol was used in this system. Before connected to the broker, Oxyguard sensor will be connected to the raspberry pi which will pass the sensor data to the broker. In the server side, data from broker will be stored in the database as well as shown in the client.

Fig. 1. Data Flow Diagram of System

The approach to integrate smart fish farming with the concept of IoT will provide user with a convenient way to control and monitor the smart fish farm system. IoT embeds computer intelligence into the smart fish farm which allows user to control and monitor the system from anywhere and anytime.

II. DESIGN OF SMART FISH FARM SYSTEM

The term smart systems is quite general and identifies a

broad class of intelligent and miniaturized devices that are

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usually energy-autonomous and ubiquitously connected. They

incorporate functionalities like sensing, actuation, and

control[6].This fish farm system can be considered as a smart

system because it has capability to automatically collect the

environmental data and send it to the server. The data can be

monitored from the android mobile application. It also has

ability to autonomously regulating the water flow and water

level in the aquarium with respect to water level sensor and

controlled by Arduino microcontroller.

This smart fish farm system is very friendly to the

environment. Here, we use container box as the main frame

material to build the aquarium tank. For the next phase, we

also have plan to use wastage water from the thermal plant to

be used in the system. This wastage water from the thermal

plant exchanges the function of the heat pump in this system.

A. Smart Fish Farm

The design of hardware configuration for smart aquarium

is shown in figure 2. Smart aquarium also called vertical

aquarium because of the aquarium were arranged one over

another. The construction of the smart fish farm consists of

balancing tank, Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) for

the water filter system, aquarium 1, and aquarium 2 where the

fishes will reside.

(a)

(b)

Fig. 2. Design of Hardware Configuration for Smart Aquarium, (a) 3D View smart Aquarium, (b) Front View smart Aquarium.

In this system, water will flow in a close loop system. From the figure 3 we can see that green line indicates the outflow of the aquarium while red line indicates inflow of the aquarium. Aquarium 1 and aquarium 2 will control two kind of valve which are inflow valve and outflow valve to keep the water circulation and level of water at stable position. Balancing tank will store the warm water which will be distributed to aquarium 1 and aquarium 2. Next, water from aquarium 1 and aquarium 2 will be sent to RAS along with the sludge of the fish. In the RAS, not only sludge will be filtered but it also purify the pH of the water by using biochemical filter. Then, the clean water will flow again to the balancing tank and

continuously looping. The full description of the water circulation can be seen in the figure 3.

Fig. 3. Water Flow Circulation

B. Sensors

1. Oxyguard Sensor Equipment

In order to acquire more accurate data, in this system we

use Oxyguard sensor equipment. Oxyguard is a company from

Denmark which has been supplying water quality measuring

and monitoring equipment to the aquaculture since 1987 [7]. In

the figure 4(a), shows Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and

temperature sensor. From that probe we can measure and

acquire DO and temperature data in the aquarium. That probe

is a membrane which covered galvanic cell that generates an

electrical signal proportional to the oxygen pressure it senses,

no matter whether it is in water, gas, wine, oil, or something

else [8]. Figure 4(b) shows pH sensor that has capability

working normally in the temperature up to 60°C. All the sensor

probe were connected to the Oxyguard pacific panel which

shown in the figure 4(c). It provide data sharing to the internet

by using ajax data interface. This panel also has capability to

manage up to 6 sensor at a time, meanwhile if we need to use

more than 6 sensors we have option to expand the panel using

Oxyguard pacific probe which shown in the figure 4(d).

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 4. Oxyguard Sensor Equipment, (a) Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and

Temperature Probe, (b) pH Probe, (c) Oxyguard Pacific Panel, (d) Oxyguard

Pacific Probe.

2. Water Level Sensor

Water level sensor is needed to control the water level in

each aquarium tank. This sensor is very important to our

system since we will continuously circulating the water. By

using water level sensor, we can avoid some danger cases in

our autonomous system such as overflow as well as lack of

water in the aquarium. Here, we use sonar sensor which will

measure water level data in the real time based on the distance

from the ceiling of the aquarium to the surface of the water.

The sensor shown in the figure 5.

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(3)

(2)

(1)

Fig. 5. XL-MaxSonar-WR MB7062.

3. Actuators

Electrical valve was specially designed for this system.

Electrical valve consists of DC motor for driving the valve and

potentiometer, this is major components in the electrical valve

and the next important component is potentiometer it measures

the angle and sends feedback to the micro-controller [9].

Electrical valve is shown in figure 6(a). In the figure 6(b),

centrifugal pump is used to support water circulation in the

system. This pump was pre-programmed in the Arduino to

automatically working if the valve is widely open, otherwise

this pump will automatically off if the valve is fully close.

(a)

(b)

Fig. 6. Actuators, (a) Electrical Valve, (b) Centrifugal Pump.

III. DEVELOPMENT OF REMOTE OPERATING ALGORITHM

FOR SMART FISH FARM

In order to perform an autonomous system, in this study we use Arduino microcontroller. Arduino is an open source physical computing platform based on a simple input/output (I/O) board and a development environment that implements the Processing language. Arduino provide development software tools called Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment), which is used to write and upload the computer code to the physical board [10]. Here, Arduino will be equipped with JSN270 shield for the wifi communication.

Arduino will control several components in the aquarium fish farm system such as electric valves and pumps to control the level of the water in the aquarium with respect to water level sensor, control heat pump operation to maintain the temperature stable at 30°C, and control the air pump operation to maintain the oxygen level not less than 6 mg/L.

A. Water Level Control

Fig. 7. Water Level Control Block Diagram.

The main sensor to control the water level of aquarium is sonar sensor as shown in Figure 5. It sends out a high frequency sound pulse that will hit anything in front of it for then the sound pulse will reflect back to the sensor. As the speed of sound is 343 meter per second, the distance between the object can be calculated as :

Distance = (Speed of Sound X Time) / 2

The distance between the ceiling of the aquarium and the bottom is 100 cm. Here, we want to keep the water level stable at the minimum is 20 cm and maximum is 60 cm in the aquarium. Aquarium 1 and aquarium 2 are controlling inflow and outflow valve as shown in the figure 8.

Fig. 8. Sensors and Flow Control System.

Electric valve is equipped with potentiometer as a feedback for angle sensor. After calibrating the valve, we know that the operating angle of valve is between 0 to 300 out of 1023. It means at 0 position, valve is fully close while at 300 position, valve is fully open. By knowing this factor, then we can formulate the calculation of the valve angle control respected to water level as :

m =𝑦2 − 𝑦1

𝑥2 − 𝑥1

y − 𝑦1 = m (x − 𝑥1)

where y is the angle value and x is the water level value.

B. Oxygen Level and Temperature Control

(a)

(b)

Fig. 9. Flowchart, (a) Oxygen Control, (b) Temperature Control.

Keep the DO in a require level is needed in the fish farm

system. Low level of DO can impact to the fish life and its

reproduction. Here, we want to keep the DO level not less than

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6 mg/L. Arduino is connected to the air pump. If the DO level

is less than 6 mg/L, Arduino will turn on the air pump until the

require level of DO is reached. The flowchart of the oxygen

control is shown in the figure 9(a).

Normally, balancing tank is a source of water tank. Here,

water is stored and heating to 30°C before it deliver to

aquarium 1 and aquarium 2. In the process after several time of

circulation, the temperature will decrease because of several

factor. To keep the water stable at around 30°C which means it

is a comfortable temperature for the fish living, we control the

heat pump from the Arduino. In figure 9(b), heat pump will

turn into on if the temperature is below 27°C. Otherwise, heat

pump will off if the require temperature of the aquarium is

reached.

IV. MONITORING AND CONTROL OF SYSTEM USING MQTT

MQTT is a machine-to-machine (M2M) / Internet of

Things connectivity protocol. It was designed as an extremely

lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport. It is useful

for connections with remote locations where a small code

footprint is required and/or network bandwidth is at a premium.

[11].

The main entity in the MQTT protocol is broker. This

communication is similar with client-server communication.

Broker as server officially in charge as router to pass

information using publish-subscribe format. In the broker is

pre-registered of several topic to classify the destination of the

information. In this system, every sensor data will be published

under this topic address. Here we use "topic/Arduino/pub" to

publish the data from Arduino to the server and

"topic/Arduino/sub" to subscribe every data of sensor and

command which come from the client to be executed in

Arduino.

Fig. 10. MQTT publish-subscribe architecture

Full description of MQTT subscribe – publish architecture

can be seen in the figure 10. Arduino is fully control of valve,

pump, air pump, and heat pump. When the valve is rotating,

potentiometer measure the error angle as the angle sensor. If

the error is zero that means the valve is already in the proper

position. Otherwise, the valve is keep rotating whether it

moving to close direction or open direction.

This valve is possible to control automatically or remotely

from the android application. Arduino will listen everytime

and ready to subscribe the command from the client. Along

with controlling function, Arduino also send the water level

data and angle data to the server. When another device such as

oxyguard will send oxygen, temperature and pH data to the

server. Later on, this data will pass to publish into android

application.

A. JSON Data Format

Smart fish farm system needs to send many data of sensors to the server as well as listening command from the client to Arduino. To increase the efficiency in transferring the data, this system used JSON for data representation and exchange. JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation. It's an open standard to represent data as attributes with values. It is now widely used for data serialization and transport in many standalone and web applications. JSON provides an ideal means to encapsulate data between the client and server.[12].

The approach in this system, we need to use several sensors that constaint to make natural environment of fish to life and grow. Those sensors data were read by using whether Arduino or Oxyguard and need to be transmitted to the server. The current implementation of JSON in the system is given as the following :

{“ID”:“AQ01IN” , ”US”:45.5, ”ANGLE”:50}

{“ID”:“AQ01OU” , ”US”:45.5, ”ANGLE”:50}

{“ID”:“AQ02IN” , ”US”:45.5, ”ANGLE”:50}

{“ID”:“AQ01OU” , ”US”:45.5, ”ANGLE”:50}

These data are sent from Arduino to the broker to topic address "topic/Arduino/pub". This data will be sent into one package to the broker. “AQ01IN” means that data was sent from aquarium 1 inflow and “AQ01OU” means that data was sent from aquarium 1 outflow. Every entity comes with water level data which is in this case labelled as “US” and valve angle data which is in this case labelled as “ANGLE”.

Arduino also always listen command from the client. The command will be transmitted to Arduino by using JSON format that is represented by entity or id of destination valve, angle command, and Arduino mode. In this system, we need to change the mode of the system if we want to perform remote mode from the client which is represented by “M” for manual mode from client and “A” for autonomously fully controlled by Arduino. We can see the current implementation as follows:

{“ID”:”AQ02IN”, “ANGLE”:35, “MODE”:”M”}

B. Android Mobile Application

Android is one of the most famous Operating System (OS)

for smartphone. Besides this OS is open-source, Android also

has support from Google which is the most reputed IT

company currently. The smart fish farm system is targeted to

working in the android mobile application for monitoring and

controlling purposes. As described in the figure 10, android

application received data from broker. This data comes from

Oxyguard sensor data and Arduino sensor measurement. Later

on, this data will display on the screen. All data sends and

packages by JSON format and transfer using MQTT protocol. V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

A. Monitoring Sensor Data

Android mobile application was specially developed to

support smart fish farm system. This mobile application is

capable to monitor all sensor data in the smart fish farm system.

As shown in the figure 11, all sensor data were successfully

displayed on the screen. All aquarium tank on the system has

different sensor parameter. For aquarium 1 and aquarium 2 the

sensor is temperature, pH, DO, and water level. For the

balancing tank and RAS are the same sensor but without pH

sensor. We also can track the valve angle position of every

aquarium tank which are include inflow valve and outflow

valve.

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(a) (b)

(c) (d) Fig. 11. Android Mobile Monitoring Sensor Data, (a) Aquarium 1, (b)

Aquarium 2, (c) Balancing Tank, (d) RAS.

B. Autonomous Valve Flow Control

In order to support an autonomous control, this system has

to develop ability to balancing the flow between the inflow and

outflow of the aquarium tank. This is needed to avoid overflow

of the water as well as lack of water in the aquarium. In the

figure 12 is shown the experimental result of the autonomous

flow control. The system is capable to control equally between

inflow and outflow of the valve in the constant position.

(a)

(b) Fig. 12. Autonomous Flow Control, (a) Back-side Aquarium 2 Inflow, (b)

Front-side Aquarium 2 Outflow.

C. Remote Control of Valve Flow Control

To perform the remote control of the fish farm system, we

need to change the mode of the application from the mobile.

Figure 13 describes the remote control of the system in the

balancing tank. Here, the water will flow from the RAS tank to

the balancing tank. Valve angle is adjustable from 0 to 90

degree. In the figure 13(a), shows the state of the in valve on 2

degree which means this valve is in close position. On the top

right of the picture, we can see the mode of the system already

changed into remote control mode. By using “+” and “-”

button, we can adjust the valve angle as we desire. Next, we

can tap the “OK” button to send the command of the valve

angle to the Arduino.

Before the command is transmitted into Arduino, there will

be alert information appears in the screen as shown in the

figure 13(b). This alert shows in order to ensure the user about

the valve command. If the command is correct, user can

approve by choosing “Yes” button. Next, Arduino will give

feedback to the server about current valve angle position. The

final position of the valve can be seen in the figure 13(c). As

we can see, the command was sucessfully executed by

Arduino. The valve position changed into 88 degree which

means the valve is in open position.

(a) (b)

(c)

Fig. 13. Balancing Tank Remote Valve Control, (a) Valve Initial Position, (b)

Alert Information, (c) Valve Final Position.

CONCLUSION

Smart fish farm with IoT technology is a new invention in the world. This system can effectively reduce the human effort for growing and farming fish. Here are the points that we can acquire from the results of this system :

1. Electric valve which has function as a water regulator of this system were very well controlled by the Arduino. Autonomous control of the electric valve was successfully control with respect to water level sensor. The system

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shows equally balance and stable between the inflow water and outflow water as shown in the figure 12.

2. MQTT as a lightweight protocol is very suitable to run in the low memory micro-controller such as Arduino. It shows very good performance and flexible in data exchange although the broker was connected to many entity in the system such as Arduino, Oxyguard sensor, database, and android mobile application.

3. JSON data format successfully enhance the efficiency in data exchange and make it very easy to understand and handling in the program.

4. All sensor data indicator were successfully showed and displayed in the android mobile application. All data such as DO, temperature, pH, water level, and valve angle can be seen in the figure 11.

5. The system is possibly maintain a good environment for the fish living with preserve the temperature of water around 30°C, pH stable not less than 6 and DO not less than 6mg/L.

6. Remote control of the system can be perform by change the mode into remote mode. Command data successfully send from mobile application to Arduino through MQTT protocol. Arduino return feedback to the mobile application as shown in the figure 13.

Acknowledgment

This work supports by the KOREA Ministry of Trade, Industrial and Energy. We established the project, which is industrial verification and design of ICT VAEMS practical models. Also, this work granted to “Busan University of Foreign Studies”.

References

[1] O. Vermesan, P. Friess, “Internet of Things-From Research and Innovation to Market Development,”River Publishers, pp. 8, 2015.

[2] Raymond James & Associates, “ The Internet of Things - A Study in Hype, Reality, Disruption, and Growth”, online at http://sitic.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Internet-of-Things-A-Studyin-Hype-Reality-Disruption-and-Growth.pdf, January 2014..

[3] IDC, “Worldwide Internet of Things 2013–2020 Forecast: Billions of Things, Trillions of Dollars,” Doc #: 243661, October 2013.

[4] K.J. Shin, A.V. Angani, M. Akbar, “Fully Automatic Control System for Smart Vertical Aquarium, ” IEEE International Conference on Applied System Innovation, Sapporo, Japan, pp. 1-4, May 2017.

[5] V. Lampkin, W.T. Leong, L. Olivera, S. Rawat, N. Subrahmanyam, R.Xiang, “Building Smarter Planet Solutions with MQTT and IBM WebSpehere MQ Telemetry, ” IBM Redbooks, pp. ix, USA, September 2012

[6] A. Sassone, M. Grosso, M. Poncino, E. Maaci, “Smart Electronic System : An Overview, ” Smart System Integration and Simulation, Springer International Publishing, pp. 5 – 21, Switzerland, 2016.

[7] Oxyguard About Company, online at http://www.oxyguard.dk/about-us/, accessed May 2017.

[8] Oxyguard Manual, “The Oxyguard Oxygen Probe”, online at http://www.oxyguard.dk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/D02-Standard-Probe-brochure-gb-06131.pdf, accessed May 2017.

[9] K.J. Shin, A.V. Angani, “Development of Water Control System with Electrical Valve for Smart Aquarium, ”IEEE International Conference on Applied System Innovation, Sapporo, Japan, pp. 1-4, May 2017.

[10] M. Banzi, “Getting Started with Arduino 2nd Edition, ” O’Reilly, pp. 1-3, USA, September 2011.

[11] D. Barata, G. Louzada, A. Carreiro, A. Damasceno, “System of acquisition, transmission, storage and visualization of Pulse Oximeter and ECG data using Android and MQTT, ” HCIST 2013 - International Conference on Health and Social Care Information Systems and Technologies, Elsevier, pp. 1265 – 1272, Portugal, 2013.

[12] R. Rischpater, “JavaScript JSON Cookbook, ” PACKT Publishing, pp. 1-3, Birmingham, UK, June 2015.

Kyoo Jae Shin is a Professor of Intelligence Robot

Science at the Busan University of Foreign Studies

(BUFS), Busan and South Korea. He is the director of Future Creative Science Research Institute at the BUFS.

He had received his B.S. degree in Electronics

Engineering in 1985 and M.S degree in Electrical Engineering from Cheonbuk National University (CNU)

in 1988 and his Ph.D. degree in the Electrical Science

from the Pusan National University (PNU) in 2009. Dr. Shin was a professor of Navy technical education school and a main director

for research associate of Dynamic stabilization system in Dusan defense

weapon research institute. Also, he had researched and developed the following as; fish robot, submarine robot, automatic dug spay robot in glass

room, milking automatic robot using manipulator, personal electrical vehicle,

smart accumulated aquarium using heat pump, solar tracking system, 3D hologram system and gun/turret stabilization system. He has interested in

intelligence robot, image signal processing application system and smart farm

and aquarium using new energy and IoT technology.

Muhammad Akbaris a Master student of Professor Kyoo Jae Shin of ICT Creative design at the Busan

University of Foreign Studies (BUFS), Busan, South

Korea. He had received his bachelor degree in Informatics Engineering in 2014 from Universitas

Islam Negeri (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta,

Indonesia and he is pursuing his Master’s degree in the Embedded and Automation control from the Busan

University of Foreign Studies (BUFS), Busan, South Korea. He is researching

on ICT Vertical Aquarium Fish Farm, fish robot and 3D hologram. He has interested in embedded system, software development, image signal

processing application system, intelligence robot and space technology.