Characterization of a water level measurement system developed using a commercial submersible pressure transducer

Abstract

A water level measurement system employing a commercial submersible pressure transducer was developed. The submersible pressure transducer consists of a piezoresistive sensor configured in a Wheatstone bridge, a signal conditioner, and a 4–20 mA transmitter. The measurement system is also equipped with a 4–20 mA receiver for long wire transmission and an 8-bit ADC contained in an ATmega 16 microcontroller for further processing and providing water level display. Based on the characterization of the obtained measurement result, a linear correlation between the water level and the sensor output was obtained. It is shown that the pipe diameter and the position of the sensitive part of the sensor do not affect the sensor output. This implies that the change on the sensor output is only due to the level of the water. It was also found that the submersible water level sensor possesses high accuracy, sensitivity, stability, linearity, and proper hysteresis characteristics.