International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 4 Issue: 3

ISSN: 2321-8169
347 - 349

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Autonomous underground water detection Robot

Ronak Rathod

Prof. K. Venkatasubramanian

School of Electronics Engineering

Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai Campus.
Chennai, India
E-mail: rathodronak.kishorbhai2015@vit.ac.in

School of Electronics Engineering

Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai Campus
Chennai, India
E-mail: venkatasubramanian.k@vit.ac.in

Abstract India is one of the most water challenged countries in the world. Water demand is continuously increasing day by day, as peoples
demand of water for different household and industrial purpose is increasing. Due to this, surface water is not able to meet the demands of water
supply. Due to this need of underground water has increased. This work is focused to meet the challenge of finding out underground water in a
simple way with the help of robot. This Arduino based robot would analyze the surface using Wenner method to find the presence of water body
under the earth surface. Global Positioning System (GPS) attached to robot will send location of underground water to operator who is taking
note of readings of water level. The data received during analysis will be fed through a program which will follow logic and store the amount of
water present at that particular depth. This data will help to plot the map of where underground water is available in sufficient quantity.
Keywords- ArduinoBoard,wenner method, underground water,dc motor,gps,servo motor

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I. INTRODUCTION
Water scarcity is a new challenge that is going to dawn upon
in the near future. The only way to get over this water problem
is by replenishing the underground water table. The current
projects of rain water harvesting in metro cities have a
limitation on the amount of water that can be processed,
filtered and stored. Ground water resource gets recharged
through the precipitation in the monsoon season in India. The
annual natural groundwater recharge from rainfall in India is
about 342.43 km3, which is 8.56% of total annual rainfall of
the country. The annual groundwater recharge from canal
irrigation system is about 89.46 km3 (7).This project aims at
finding underground water bodies (1).It involves making a
robot which can detect underground water sources (water
pockets) in and around water logging areas or in lakes, so that
during the onset of monsoon a hole can be drilled in the
ground to let all the water being collected (because of the
draining from the city or residential areas to be fed directly to
the underground storage.

Where a is resistivity measured in ohm-cm, a is the space

between electrodes; R is the resistance value in Ohm. (4) The
resistance of soil will change as the spacing between electrodes
is increased

II. METHODOLOGY
The work is going to deploy Wenner method to detect any
underground water source (2). The Wenner method is about
keeping four electrodes collinear to each other. The four
electrodes considered are D1, E1, D2, E2. D1 and D2 electrode
will supply current externally at two ends. Between that two
electrodes E1 and E2 electrodes are fixed which gives reading
of voltage across soil (4).The distance between all four
electrodes should be same. The readings are measured by
voltmeter connected to electrodes E1 and E2 (5) .This readings
are converted in resistance form by ohms law. This resistance is
not proper resistance that of the soil. Soil is having
heterogeneous layers so for that apparent resistivity is to be
calculated. Apparent resistivity is given by simple formula
a= 2*3.14*a*R
(1)

Fig.1 Block diagram

It is having one servo motor fixed at front end of it.Servo motor
is programmed for 90 degree rotation. So for 0 degree rod
attached to servo motor will stay up in the air and after 90
degree rotation rod attached with servo motors will insert
electrodes into soil which are fixed on it .Servo motor has three
outputs. One output is connected with pin 9 of Arduino board
and other two are connected to ground and Vcc of board. All
four electrodes on servomotor are fixed at equal spacing of a
347

IJRITCC | March 2016, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org

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International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 4 Issue: 3

ISSN: 2321-8169
347 - 349

_______________________________________________________________________________________
between them. It is working on Arduino Atmega2560 board.
This board has 54 I/O pins and 16 analog input pins. Board
runs on 5v dc supply. It has one 16 MHz crystal oscillator. It
has four sets of serial transmission and receiver pins. Robot is
having two 300 rpm dc motors driven by L293D motor driver
IC at back end of it. One motor is connected with pin3 and pin6
of driver IC. Other motor is connected at pin 14 and pin 11 of
driver IC. Pins 2, 7, 10, 15 of driver IC are connected with
10,11,12,13 pins of Arduino board. This driver IC is provided
with external dc supply from 9V battery. A GPS module
having internal antenna is attached to the Arduino board. Its
receiver and transmission output is connected with transmission
1 and receiver 1 pin of Arduino board respectively. Two
electrodes D1 and D2 will be given external supply of current
through battery. Another two electrodes E1 and E2 are there, of
them one is connected to ground of Arduino and other to the
analog input of Arduino which will provide reading of voltage
on serial monitor. Supply to GPS will be provided from
Arduino board.

Fig. 3 Soil testing (Top soil)

III. EXPERIMENTATION
Motors connected with driver IC will turn on as you connect
9V dc battery with driver IC connection. Motors will remain in
on mode for 3 seconds, as in programming it is done for 3
seconds. So robot will move ahead for 3 seconds. After 3
seconds robot will stop and servo motor attached in front will
turn on and rotate 90 degree. Rod attached with servo motor
will insert the electrodes attached with it inside the soil. This
electrodes will stay inside till readings are taken and again with
that servo motor electrodes will be removed. Along with that
GPS location of that particular place where reading is taken is
also displayed on serial monitor. After that robot will again
move forward and continue the same task. These voltage
readings taken by robot will be analyzed and converted into
apparent resistivity form by ohms law and apparent resistivity
formula. Based on that readings resistivity of soil can be known
(3).

Fig. 4 Soil testing (Sand)

Fig. 5 Robot representation

Fig.2 Soil testing (Dug soil)

Fig. 6 Setup

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IJRITCC | March 2016, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org

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International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication

Volume: 4 Issue: 3

ISSN: 2321-8169
347 - 349

_______________________________________________________________________________________
that of top soil. For sand resistivity was highest of among all
soils. Soil was made wet at some depth and above layer of soil
was kept dry. When measured by Wenner method, it showed
resistance drop in all soils.As water is good conductor of
electricity, resistance decreases in soil and conductivity
increases inside soil. So we can know from it that water is
their inside soil at the depth electrodes are inserted inside soil.
Voltage readings and GPS locations of place where soil testing
was done was displayed on serial monitor screen.

Fig. 7 Wenner array method

Values of resistance at different locations and in different
types of soil would vary according to weather conditions, type
of soil, and temperature in that area. Height of electrodes
inserted into the soil is 10 percent of distance measured for
getting voltage.
IV. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
Soil testing done on different types of soil showed different
results. Three soils Top soil, dug soil and sand which was used
showed difference in resistance. All the three soils taken are
tested by Wenner method (6). Using that resistance in apparent
resistivity formula, resistivity of all three different soils was
found.

Fig. 10 Latitude and Longitude of location

V.CONCLUSION
This method is more useful for lateral study of resistance of
soil. Robot which will do all this reading task itself will be
useful for persons getting to do such task of reading voltages
of soil. Manual effort will get reduced and more accurate
readings can be obtained.
This small robot can be made into big machine type robot
which can do soil testing for ground water analysis on its own
and can send data on its own to the operator sitting at some
another part of world with wireless communication
REFERENCES

Fig. 8 Apparent resistivity comparison of dry soils

Fig. 9 Apparent resistivity comparison of wet soils

[1] Ajibade A.C (1979) The Nigerian Precambrian and the

PanAfrican Orogeny. In: The Precambrian Geology of
Nigeria (P.O.
Oluyide et al, eds), pp. 45-53.
[2] Alile, M.O., S.I. Jegede and O.M. Ehigiator, (2008) Underground
water exploration using electrical resistivity method in Edo State,
Nigeria. Asian J. Earth Sci., 1: 38-42.
[3] Dogara, M.D., B.M. Dewu and C.O. Ajayi, (1998) Groundwater
potential of Romi, Kaduna, Nig. J. Physics., 10:85-90.
[4] Barker,R.D., 1989, Depth of investigation of colinear symmetrical
four-electrode arrays: Geophysics, 54, 10311037.
[5] Y.L. Chow, J.J. Yang and K.D. Srivastava, Grounding resistance
of buried electrodes in multi-layer earth predicted by simple voltage
measurements along earth surfacea theoretical discussion, IEEE
Transactions on Power Delivery, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 707-715, April
1995.
[6] Cassel, H. and A. Klute (1986). Methods of soil analysis: physical
and mineralogical methods, American Society of Agronomy and Soil
Science Society of America, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. pp1188.
[7] Rakesh Kumar, R. D. Singh and K. D. Sharma: Water resources
of India, Current Science, Vol. 89, No. 5, 10 September 2005

Resistivity obtained was more for top soil. Resistivity for dug
soil as it contains moisture, its resistivity was found lesser than
.

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