Development of a Floating Beacon for Real-Time Water Quality Measurement

Water quality is a critical determinant of agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability. This study addresses the challenge of real-time water quality monitoring in agricultural settings, specifically focusing on paddy fields in Perlis, Malaysia. The Jabatan Pengairan dan Saliran of Perlis (JPS) currently faces difficulties in continuously monitoring water quality parameters after water discharge from the Timah Tasoh Dam into the irrigation system. To overcome this, this research focuses on developing a Floating Beacon (FB), an Internet of Things (IoT)-based system for autonomous water quality assessment. The system integrates sensors to measure key water quality parameters, including pH, turbidity and temperature. Real-time data collected by these sensors are wirelessly transmitted to the Blynk cloud platform, enabling continuous data recording and visualization on a customizable dashboard. Furthermore, the system incorporates a feature for tracking the geographical location of the monitoring devices, providing crucial context for water quality measurements across the agricultural landscape. This research is anticipated to significantly enhance the efficiency of water quality management for the JPS of Perlis, thereby supporting optimal water supply to paddy fields and contributing to improved agricultural practices. Based on the result, the FB is capable provides real-time water quality data and display on the web and mobile devices using Blynk 2.0. Furthermore, the FB shows high accuracy for the location measurement with the maximum error at 0.000743% for latitude and 0.000037% for longitude.