A Cost-Effective Real-Time Water Quality Monitoring System

Ensuring access to safe drinking water is critically important, particularly in regions facing scarcity and contamination challenges. This paper presents a cost-effective, IoT-based water quality monitoring system specifically designed for rural areas. The system measures key water parameters, including pH, turbidity, temperature, electrical conductivity, and TDS. It integrates an ESP8266 for data acquisition, filtering, and transmission to RTWQMS, a real-time web-based application for data visualization, which utilizes an inference engine for binary decision-making. The system's architecture is structured into three layers: the Physical Layer (sensors), the Network Layer (ESP8266), and the Application Layer (RTWQMS). This project aims to provide an affordable solution for continuous water quality assessment, thereby ensuring safe drinking water in underserved communities. Future developments will include the integration of an expert system for decision-making using advanced machine learning algorithms for multi-class classification of water quality.