Prototype of Gas Leak« „ 132

Prototype of Gas Leak Detector System Using

Microcontroller and SMS Gateway

Marchel Thimoty Tombeng

Fakultas Ilmu Komputer, Universitas Klabat
Jl. Arnold Mononutu Airmadidi, Minahasa Utara, Sulawesi Utara, Indonesia 95371
Jurusan Teknik Informatika
e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract
On of the very important things in human life is home safety. Home Safety refers to the
awareness of risks and potential dangers in and around home which may cause bodily harm, or
even death. Awareness and vigilance is indispensable in preventing the threatening risks and
potential dangers. Therefore, people needs a timely warning information about gas leak for
prevention of home safety threatening risks and potential dangers. This warning information
will allow people, users, or residents to reduce the risks and potential dangers caused by gas
leak, especially when they are away from home. This paper describes the development of system
technology regarding the gas leak detector which integrates the MQ2 gas sensor, Arduino Uno
R3 Microcontroller and the Sim900 SMS Gateway.

Keywords : MQ2 Sensor, Arduino Uno R3, Sim900, LPG

1. INTRODUCTION
One of the very important things in human life is home safety. The home safety refers
to the awareness of risks and potential dangers in and around a home which may cause bodily
harm, or even death [1]. There are several kinds of risks and potential dangers which threaten
the safety of many house and lives. One of the risks and potential dangers is the gas leak which
may affect to serious damage of a house.
To prevent the threatening risks and potential dangers, awareness and vigilance is
absolutely necessary. Human requires timely warning information regarding the occurrence of
gas leak for prevention of home safety threatening risks and potential dangers. By providing
with that such warning information allow people, users, or residents to reduce the risks and
potential dangers of the gas leak, especially when they are away from home. This background is
the major motivation behind this study and the development of the warning information system
to help people or residents monitoring their home safety. This study is to develop a technology
system that integrates the LPG Sensor Detector, Microcontroller, and SMS Gateway Module.
Moreover, this study will develop a low cost, quick response, easy to use and implement and
low maintenance gas leak prototype.
The procedures of the Gas Leak Detector System are as follows: to monitor the
parameters of LPG leak we use Gas Sensor, all the parameters produced by the sensor will be
sent to control centre (microcontroller) using cable. Afterward, the microcontroller will process
the parameters/data and then give warning message and alert via SMS Gateway and Alarm to
users whenever the input parameters/data shows exists gas leak in the air. The alarm will
remain on until the gas sensor detects no gas leak in the air.

Copyright @2017, Universitas Klabat Anggota CORIS, ISSN: 2541-2221/e-ISSN: 2477-8079

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2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In performing this research study, the Prototyping Process Model was chosen as the
basic theoretical framework. Prototyping is a engineering-based approach for developing a
software of system. This approach is an iterative process that involve a close working
relationship between designer and user through feedback process.

Figure 1 Prototyping Process Model

Figure 1 show several process stages [2]:

1. Communication: the objective is to gather all the information required in developing the
system. Communication is done through direct relationship between user and the
researcher/developer to identified all the information and tools that are needed to support the
system development.
2. Planning: in this stage, rapid planning is performed after all the information of are identified
in the previous stage.
3. Modelling: in this stage, the researcher analyses the requirement and then design the system.
4. Construction: in this stage, the result of design and analysis are translated into programming
language in other word the system is constructed.
5. Deployment: after the system has been constructed/developed, the system is distributed to
user, afterward user evaluates and give feedback towards the application that has been made.
Feedback is directly given and used for the next application development or iteration
onward.

2.1 Conceptual Framework

Based on the Prototyping Theory stated above, the conceptual framework design will be
shown in the following Figure 2.
Prototype of Gas Leak« „ 134

Figure 2 Conceptual Framework

2.2 System Architecture Design

The workflow process architecture of the system is shown in the following Figure 3.

Figure 3 System Architecture Design

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The MQ2 sensor is used for sensing the gas in the air whenever there is a gas leak, this
will be done by reading the part per million (ppm) gas ratio parameter in air, this is referred as
raw data. The MQ2 sensor then convert the raw data into digital signal which contain HIGH or
LOW. The converted parameter is then sent to the Arduino Uno R3 (Microcontroller) to be
processed. Afterward, the system in Microcontroller evaluates whether the input gas parameter
is LOW, that means the gas leak is occurred. The system then sent the information to the user
via Sim900 SMS Gateway and directly set the alarm notification to On. The Alarm will remain
on until it exceeds 180,000 milliseconds or equivalent to 3 minutes.

2.3 Hardware Implementation

There are three modules included in this system. First is the sensor module, which
contains of three MQ2 sensors. Second is Processing module, where the Arduino Uno R3
Microcontroller are chosen. Third is the SMS Gateway module, where the Sim900 GSM is
chosen. And the last is the Alarm module. For the hardware schema description is shown in
following Figure 4.

Figure 4 Hardware Schema

3. TESTING AND EVALUATION RESULT

The Figures below describe the result of the development of the gas leak detector
system. The Figure 5 shows the sensors component. The sensors component shown in Figure 5
contain the MQ2 Semiconductor sensor for combustible Gas. MQ2 gas sensor use the SnO2
sensitive materiDO ZKLFK ZLWK ORZHU FRQGXFWLYLW\ LQ FOHDQ DLU 7KH VHQVRU¶V FRQGXFWLYLW\ LV
higher along with the gas concentration rising whenever the target combustible gas exists. MQ2
gas sensor is suitable for sensing gas such as LPG, Propane, and Hydrogen, and also Methane
and other combustible steam, and it is with low cost and suitable for different application.
Figure 6 and Figure 7 show the inside of the gas leak detector system module which
contains Arduino Uno R2 Microcontroller, SIM900 SMS Gateway, and Arduino Shield.
Arduino Uno uses the ATmega328. It has 14 digital input/output pins, 6 analogue inputs, a 16
MHz ceramic resonator, an ICSP header, a reset input, a power jack, and a USB connection, and
Prototype of Gas Leak« „ 136

it contains everything needed to support the microcontroller. The SIM900 is a complete Quad-
band GSM/GPRS solution that can be used in any applications. SIM900 perform GSM/GPRS
850/900/1800/1900MHz for voice, SMS, Data, and Fax in a small form factor and with low
power consumption. And for the Arduino Shield is a board that can be plugged on top of the
Arduino PCB extending its capabilities.
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component. Figure 11 shows the message notification on smartphone device.
The Gas leak detector system has been completely developed and has been evaluated by
user, and for the result can be seen in Table 1.

Figure 5 Sensor Component

Figure 6 Inside Module and power adapter Figure 7 Arduino Microcontroller and shield
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Figure 8 Outside Appearance of gas leak detector system module

Figure 9 Buzzer (alarm) component Figure 10 Sim900 Antenna

Figure 11 Message notification sent to recipient 6285288877755

Prototype of Gas Leak« „ 138

Table 1 Evaluation Result

No Evaluation Task Data & Tools Expected Actual Output
Output
1 Detect Gas Leak Gas Lighter, Gas Leak Gas Leak
LPG Detected Detected
2 Buzzer/Alarm Alert (within Buzzer Alarm is Alarm is
duration of 180,000 ms running for running for
180,000 ms 180,000 ms
3 Send message Recipient Message sent to Message sent to
number: recipient recipient
6285288877766,
Sim900,
Samsung s7
Edge

The evaluation result in Table 1 shows that the expected output and the actual output from
evaluation task number 1 to evaluation task number 3 exists no differences and this indicates
that the gas leak detector system is running successfully.

5. CONCLUSION
This gas leak detector system contains two features, this includes the SMS Gateway
feature for only sending warning information regarding the gas leak to user, and the Alarm for
the warning alert. There is some improvement which can be applied for the future work, such as
regarding the SMS Gateway, it need to enhance with feature such as notifying the user
whenever the remaining credit balance is insufficient. Another thing which can be enhanced is
regarding the sensor, the sensors in this module do not include somewhat notification for
notifying the user whenever the sensor not working properly or not connected to the
microcontroller for some cases, therefore, it is recommended to add this kind of features in the
future work for better refinement.

REFERENCES

[1] Tombeng, M. T. (2015). Smarthome for Home Safety and Monitoring System Using
Smartphone Application and Zigbee Wireless Communication. Konferensi Nasional Sistem
dan Informatika. ISSN: 2460-8378, p. 402. Bali: STIKOM
[2] Pressman, R. S. (2005). Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach. McGraw-Hill
Higher Education.
[3] Kassar, R. A., & Tembhurnikar, N. P. (2013). WSN Based Air Pollution Monitoring
System. International Journal of Science and Engineering Application, pp. 55-59.
[4] Mukherjee, A. (2016). Project Hub. Retrieved August 08, 2016, from Arduino:
https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/Aritro/smoke-detection-using-mq-2-gas-sensor-79c54a