In many industries (specially small scale), measurements of several key variables (such as levels, flowrates, etc.) are not available. Also sometimes even when sensors to measure such variables are placed, the corresponding measurements are not available in digital form. Instead, the sensed values are simply displayed (using local displays or sometimes at a central location). These sensed values are either not recorded or recorded manually at intermittent times.
To facilitate process control, data analytics, and abnormal event management, it is essential to have sensed values of key variables available in a digital form at sufficiently high frequency.
In the project, the aim is to look at low cost software and hardware interventions to obtain digital data. In particular, image processing based measurements of unmeasured variables, and low cost hardware digitization of existing measurements will be investigated.