**Monitoring Battery Consumption Level using Current Sensor**
**Ahmad Afiq bin Ahmad Shaiful1\*, Romiza Binti Md Nor2**
*1 Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 02600 Arau, Perlis, Malaysia*
***1ahmadafiq.play@gmail.com***
***2romiza@uitm.edu.my***
**ABSTRACT**
***Nowadays, power wheelchair is one of the most important vehicles for people with physical disabilities such as paralysis, stroke, handicap and many more. Electric wheelchair is also called electric-power wheelchair or powerchair can be moved by an electrically based power source, regularly motor or batteries. In fact, it is very important to have frequent monitoring battery level because power wheelchair need the sufficient battery level for it to be move around. Therefore, this project is developed to monitor the battery consumption level and real time battery monitoring. Current sensor is used to measure the current state of the battery level. In this project, Internet of Things (IoT) concept is applied where sensor and mobile application is integrated known as BLife. Blife was designed using the visibility of the system status principles consist of knowledge is power, appropriate feedback, compel user to action and communication create trusts. If the battery in the lower state, the power wheelchair users will be informed through mobile application by showing an indicator to inform that it needs to be recharged. Moreover, the current location of the power wheelchair user also will be notified to the caretaker so that they know of the user whereabout. Evaluation of Blife has been conducted by distributing questionnaires to power wheelchair user and students of UiTM. Evaluation consist of two parts which are functionality testing and evaluation on impact of the visibility of the system status. Most of the respondents are satisfied and giving a good feedback on the functionality testing on BLife. This project is contributed to the disable people who has limited access to charge battery and to aware them on their battery level.***
***Keywords:** Monitoring system, Real Time Battery Monitoring, Arduino Microcontroller, GPS module, Current Sensor, Internet of Things.*
1. **Introduction**
Nowadays, power wheelchair is one of the most important vehicles for people with physical disabilities such as paralysis, stroke, handicap and etc. According to DiGiovine (2014), electric wheelchair, also called electric-powered wheelchair or powerchair which has any seating surface with wheels fastened to it that is moved by an electrically based power source, regularly motors and batteries. Thus, it is important to monitor the battery level especially the battery of the power wheelchair. This is because the power wheelchair need the sufficient capacity of the battery for the power wheelchair to operate. The battery need to be monitored because user can make the assumption or expectation based on the latest battery capacity. For example, if the battery has 50% of the capacity what are the distance that the power wheelchair can operates. According to Beheshti, (2018), the battery need to be monitor also because to deliver a profitable result.
The main purpose of this project is to develop a prototype of real time battery monitoring using current sensor and notified user via mobile application known as BLife and to evaluate effectiveness and efficiency of the prototype of real time battery monitoring. This project focusing on the power wheelchair users which is to monitor the battery consumption level using the current sensor. The significance of this research is to contribute to the disable people that have limited access to charge battery. Hence power wheelchair users need to be notified about the current state of the battery in the process of monitoring the battery will be fast and make the process of charging the battery also faster. In addition, power wheelchair users can know what the exact capacity of the battery level and can monitor the process of the charging and discharging of the battery.
Therefore, to have real time monitoring battery level that integrated with the IoT, GPS module are used as the notification medium within the monitoring battery level system. . In the context of this project, when the capacity of the battery is low the location power wheelchair user can be notified to the caretaker through their mobile phone.
2. **Related Work**
Power wheelchair uses a lithium ion battery as a source of power for moving wheelchairs and can be used by users. The power wheelchair battery need to be monitored because to monitor the power wheelchair user about the process of the charging and discharging the battery. There are many benefits in monitoring the battery consumption level such as to prevent the outages of the battery. According to Kaundart(2018), the capability to avoid numerous power-related outages is the primary benefit of monitoring battery. As stated by Eye(2018), battery monitoring provide confidence that the batteries will be dependable during an outage and maintaining and monitoring stationary battery systems is critical to maximize the performance and life of substation, UPS, and other critical backup power systems.
### The monitoring of the battery is very important because to avoid some problem that may occur to the battery when not monitor the battery. Some problem that may occur when the battery not be monitor is battery will get failure and outages. In the case of power wheelchair users, power wheelchair user can being stranded at some place because the battery of the wheelchair is low and can limit a user’s independence and access to environments(Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd., 2012). Moreover, the wheelchair user need to make sure that battery in the charge state. This is because most power wheelchairs require two rechargeable 12-volt batteries(Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd., 2012).
Real time battery level display is how the current capacity of the battery was displayed to the users. In the context of the project, the prototype which is BLife was displayed the battery capacity through the LCD display and mobile application.
3. **Methodology**
Figure 1: Experimental design of BLife
Figure 1 shows the experimental design that illustrated the flow and operation of how the monitoring battery consumption level using the current sensor is design. As the hardware, it used the current sensor, Arduino board, breadboard, GPS module, LCD display and etc. In the context of this project, a prototype is designed and developed to measure the capacity of the battery using the current sensor. Figure 2 clearly shown how current sensor measured the battery capacity and display it on the LCD panel and then result will also be shown in the mobile application. The location of the users also will be notified to the user if the battery is low or empty and need to be charge via the GPS module. The location of the users also was displayed on mobile application. Figure 2 shows the prototype of Blife.
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Figure 2: The prototype of BLife
4. **Findings**
Functionality testing has been conducted to twenty respondents which are among the disable and students of UiTM. From the findings, it shows that current sensor work well when displayed on BLife. Most of the respondents agreed that some amount of time needed for current sensor to measure the capacity of the battery but the response is fast and automatically displayed on the BLife (mobile application).
Figure 3: The result of functionality testing on BLife
Users are also asked related to battery capacity which trigger them to do recharging process on the battery. Most of the respondents (as shown in figure 4) has been encouraged to do the charging and recharging process to the battery when they saw the current capacity of the battery displayed. But this action might not work for some users if they are not aware of the capacity since no notification or sound that can alert them.
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> Figure 4: By seeing the battery capacity, trigger you to do recharging process on the battery
BLife prototype also has a LCD panel that display a clear information to users such as the capacity of the battery in the percentage form. Figure 5 shows that most respondents agreed that the battery capacity displayed in percentage form is familiar to them and thus could give a quick feedback since most power wheelchair user need to focus in maneuvering their wheelchair.
Figure 5: The LCD give a clear information to users such as the capacity of the battery in the percentage form
5. **Conclusion**
BLife is a prototype that was develop to monitoring the battery consumption level and displayed the information such as the battery capacity on the mobile application. The main objective of this study is to develop aprototype to monitor the battery consumption level using current sensor and evaluate the effectiveness of the prototype has been achieved. The strength of the BLife is on the context of the mobile application that can display the current capacity of the battery to the users. GPS tracker is also integrated to track the location of the power wheelchair users if the capacity of the battery is low to help the caretaker to know the location of the power wheelchair users. *BLife can be enhanced by providing users with a lot more information such as tips, emergency direct contacts and notify caretaker immediately using short message service.*
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