International Journal of Research in Engineering, Science and Management 1

Volume-2, Issue-9, September-2019

www.ijresm.com | ISSN (Online): 2581-5792

Smart Water Vending Machine

Rajani Karalgikar1, H. Prasanna Kumar2
1
PG Student, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University Visvesvaraya College of
Engineering, Bangalore, India
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University Visvesvaraya College
of Engineering, Bangalore, India

Abstract: Vending machines are the one which dispenses the

free flowing substances such as water, oil, food, beverages etc. In
that are included. The main purpose is to get the knowledge
order to help the public, Government had already made the applied from various reference books, conference papers,
facilities to provide clean drinking water with the coin based journal, and technical paper publications. These papers show
water vending machine, where on inserting a coin the system the application of the vending system applied in various
dispenses the purified water as per the need. This project uses applications.
RFID technology, the contactless technology used to identify the [1] In this paper the machines were implemented using
person or object uniquely with the help of the unique code stored
in it. This technology promotes cashless transaction. Based on the microcontroller and FPGA. FPGA based vending machine
unique code the person is able vend the ample amount of water at supports fast response and use less power than microcontroller
a defined time and the amount is deducted for every use of the based vending machine which is coin based.
card. MATLAB SIMULINK is used for the analyses of speed [2] This paper was proposed to deliver the paper to the
control of the pump at the normal condition and after the public by using sensor and microcontroller based on
feedback received from the raindrop sensor. It uses Arduino IDE mechatronics principle. It will be more cheap and economic
and implementing it on Arduino board.
for the bulk production and it will be very useful for the
Keywords: RFID reader and tag, level sensor, pH sensor, college and school students. Here it is designed to deliver
Raindrop sensor, PID controller Arduino UNO, Arduino IDE. sheets by inputting the respective coin in the system. It will
help us to save more time and manual work will be modified.
1. Introduction [3] This paper describes the application of the vending
Vending machines are the one which dispenses free flowing machine to provide medication to the old age people. The user
substance such as water, oil, food substances, beverages etc. In is required to press a button to get the pill.
order to help the public, Government had already made the [4] This paper proposes the coin cum cashless payment
facilities to provide clean drinking water with the coin based from the customer and give the desired quantity of water to be
water vending machine, where on inserting a coin the system dispensed on scanning the card by user, the system detects the
dispenses the purified water as per the need. unique bar code of the card and deducts the amount from the
But controlling and monitoring of these systems has been card. It starts dispensing after successful deduction from the
challenging task for the operator present at the place. The card.
person is unaware of the water level present in the tank, there
might be some instances where level of the water is not 3. Methodology
sufficient to dispense the water. The purified water can be Vending machines are the one which dispenses the free
checked whether it is drinkable or not by pH value indication. flowing substances such as water, oil, beverages, snacks and
This project makes use of RFID technology to make the many other substances.
system cashless and uses. In order to avoid the wastage of
water, we can also control the overflow of the water from the
container. System make uses Arduino tools an effort is made
to simplify the vending machine. This system can find
applications in public places, hospitals, military camps, malls,
industries etc.

2. Literature Review
The main aim of the literature survey is to know different
methodologies, the software and hardware implementations
Fig. 1. Smart water vending machine
used, in different cases. These papers include the different
ideas
This paper describes the application of vending machine in experimental setup of the smart water vending machine.
order to dispense the water. The below figure 1 gives the
 International Journal of Research in Engineering, Science and Management 2
Volume-2, Issue-9, September-2019
www.ijresm.com | ISSN (Online): 2581-5792

B. pH sensor
The pH sensors works on the principle that the potential
difference between two electrodes gives the pH value of the
solution to be found. And also the potential difference
between 2 electrodes gives direct measurement of the
hydrogen ion concentration or pH of the solution.

Fig. 2. Block diagram

The above figure 2 gives the block diagram of the vending Fig. 4. pH sensor
machine used to dispense the water. All the components are
connected to Arduino UNO which operates at 16 MHz of pH=ln{1/[H+]}.
clock frequency and with the supply of 5v. The use of RFID
technology makes the system smart. At every swipe of the tag, Relation between potential and pH is given by Nernst
the defined amount of rupees 5 /- is deducted from the card equation,
and the available amount is displayed. The level sensor is used
to know the presence of water in the tank so that customer is E=E˚-(RT/zF)lnQ.
able to know the availability of water in the tank to vend. It’s
important to check whether the water is likable to drink or no. E˚-cell potential at standard conditions of temperature.
The pH value from the pH meter gives the indication of nature R-universal gas constant.
of the water being acidic or alkaline in nature. z-number of moles of electrons transferred.
Another important objective of the system is the avoidance
of overflow of water. Raindrop sensor gets high when once it F-Faraday constant(amount of charge transferred per
comes in contact with water that is as soon as the water mole of electrons).
overflows from the container, the raindrop sensor gets high
which in turn off the pump. The water is dispensed for the Q-reaction quotient
defined time in absence of overflow and hence the process
stops. lnQ=ln{1/[H+]}

A. RFID reader and tag From definition of pH

lnQ=-pH

So finally we have, E=E˚+ (RT/zF)pH

Practically voltage developed between 2 electrodes is

59.16mv per pH unit. So a pH of 4 would corresponds to
Fig. 3. RFID reader and tag voltage of 3, then the voltage from neutrality.
Radio Frequency Identification is a generic term for non- 3*59.16=17.84mv.
contact technology. It works on the lower frequency of 125
kHz to identify the person or object uniquely. It is compact The pH vs. potential difference between two probes is as
and can be connected directly to PC using RS232protocol.It shown in the figure 5.
stores the unique number that identifies a person or object that
is attached to an antenna. The combined antenna and C. Raindrop Sensor
microchip are together called an “RFID tag” and work in Raindrop sensor is basically a board on which the nickel is
combination with an “RFID transponder”. coated in the form of lines. It works on the principle of
resistance. When there is no rain drop on the board resistance
is high so we get high voltage. When there is raindrop present
on the board, it reduces the resistance, because as we know
water
is the good conductor of electricity and presence of water reduce the voltage drop. This is used for controlling of
connects the nickel lines in parallel so reduces resistance and overflow of water.
 International Journal of Research in Engineering, Science and Management 3
Volume-2, Issue-9, September-2019
www.ijresm.com | ISSN (Online): 2581-5792

F. Block diagram of PID tuning used in Simulink

MATLAB Simulink which is used to control the Dc motor
and to analyze the behavior, at the normal speed and after the
feedback received by the sensor to off the pump.

Fig. 5. pH vs. potential difference

Fig. 9. Block diagram of PID tuning used in Simulink

Fig. 6. Raindrop Sensor

D. Level
Sensor
Level sensors are used to measure the level of free- flowing
substances. Such substances include liquids like water, oil etc.
Depending upon where the presence of the liquid is to be
sensed, level sensor is used to sense at particular level of
liquid. There are different liquid level sensors working on
different principle such as inductive, conductive, capacitive,
mechanical, magneto resistive, Hall Effect etc. The figure
below shows the level sensor.

Fig. 7. Level Sensor

E. Pump
The working principle of a water pump depends on the type
of motor- Electric, Centrifugal, Diesel driven etc. The figure Fig. 10. Flowchart
shows the 5V DC water pump and it is a centrifugal pump. A
centrifugal pump is powered by a device called an impeller. 4. Results
The impeller is a bit like a turbine. It has many curved blades, The results of the process are as shown in the figures 11, 12,
which channel the water through the pump. 13 and 14.

Fig. 8. Pump
Fig. 11. Initial setup
 Fig. 12. Tag matched

The above two figures 11 and 12 shows the initial step of

the process, if the unique code of the card matches, it displays Fig. 15. PID tuning
as “TAG MATCHED” else the card is not detected by the
system. PID controller used to tune the speed of the DC motor of
the pump, the figure gives the comparison of the parameters
such as the peak overshoot and the settling time of the system
at the normal speed and the speed after the feedback received
by the overflow sensor.

5. Conclusion
We developed Smart water vending system. Use of RFID
technology make the system smart automated vending of
water is used in many places such as public places such as:
Fig. 13. Amount deducted railway station, bus station, hospitals, colleges, etc. This
system can be used in industries for the identification of bulk
objects for exporting and importing The smart water vending
system is operated in such a way that its saves both time and
cost. This project concentrated on the electronics used to
satisfy the objectives of the project. By the completion of
project, we are able to understand the concept of cashless
transaction, the controlling concepts using the sensors and
feedback to the system plays a vital role in the project.

References
Fig. 14. Water quality [1] P. Pradeepa, T. Sudhalavany, K. Suganthi, N. Suganthi, and M.
Menagadevi, “Design and Implementation of Vending Machine using
Once the tag is matched, the amount of rupees 5 is deducted Verilog vhdl,” in International Journal of Advanced Engineering
Technology, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 51-53, January-March 2013.
from the card for every swipe or at every use of the tag to the [2] P. Kamalanathan, R. Irshath Ahmed, M. Mohamed Aamir and P.
reader and displays the remaining amount available in the Kalaiselvan, “Automatic Paper Vending Machine,” in International
card. Based on the pH scale read from the pH meter, the Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Research, vol. 4, no. 4,
quality of the water is displayed that is if the water quality is pp. 634-639, April 2015.
[3] Shraddha Kadam, Aishwarya Kale, Punam Nimase, Sheela Padwal, and
acidic nature, it displays as the water quality is acidic in nature Shobhit Khandare, “Medicine Vending Machine,” in International
by this the user can know that the water is not drinkable. Journal of Technical Research and Applications, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 73-76,
While on the other hand if the water is quality is alkaline in May-June, 2016.
[4] J. S. Kulkarni, “Coin Cum Cashless Based Water ATM,” Research
nature, the user can Indian Publications, 2016.
know it is drinkable.