We're working on a project about flood monitoring system. the idea of the
system is like this, we will put a sensor on places where flood rise whenever
it rains which is also connected to a cellphone,then when the flood reach a
certain height then it will send a signal to the cellphone and the cellphone will
send a message to our University Administration to know the situation in the vicinity of our university especially when the rain occurs early in the morning and also to the pumping station to let them know that they need to
open the pumping station to lessen the flood. The problem is, and we want
to ask for your help... How to interface microcontroller unit to a cellphone
(GSM) phone? What type of microcontroller is the best for our project? And
someone here know something about Nokia F-Bus Protocol?

Thank you in advance!

 

I don't have any experience with interfacing to a cell phone.

If you are not locked into using a cellphone, I can suggest an alternate wireless approach that will work depending on how far from the pump station the level sensor is located.

hgmjr

 

Thank you for the quick reply sir!

 

Are you locked into using a cellphone?

hgmjr

 

yes sir, because in our country,and also in other countries, there are too many cellphone users,and with that fact we planned to use it to make the communication and the information dessimination fast.

 

yes sir, because in our country,and also in other countries, there are too many cellphone users,and with that fact we planned to use it to make the communication and the information dessimination fast.

Since I have no experience with cellphone interfacing, I will defer to other members of the forum to assist you.

hgmjr

 

What amount of data do you want to send? How often do you need to send it?

Since you are a university contact the manufacturer of the cell phone and request the needed documentation on the cell phones axillary port. Once you have such a data sheet choosing the microcontroller should be reasonably easy.

Now for some of the newer phones you could just write a program that the phone runs and it does all the processing of the sensors and sends the data back when ever you needed. If the phone has bluetooth or wifi it is possible to make those sensors somewhat remote.
You'd have to discuss that with the manufacture of the cellphone. They should provide such data to a university at reduced or no cost.

Here is an open source, open hardware cell phone. It has possibilities.
http://www.openmoko.org/

I'm pretty sure Nokia has one that runs a Linux variant that also would be of use.

 

The system will be used during rainy season because of the flood situation of our university everytime it rains. The data to be sent is just a short message telling the flood sitution of that place were the sensors are placed.

 

I know you said you were only interested in using cellphones as the means of transmiting the sensor data. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of an alternate approach that can help get you to end point before the next flood situation occurs.

Take a look at the products on the website www.rentron.com . If you need long distance they have receiver/transmitter pairs that transmit over 3000 ft or 1000 meters. They have shorter range receiver/transmitter pairs that go at least 300 ft or 100 meters.

Very low price and easy to apply.

hgmjr

 

http://www.embedtronics.com/nokia/fbus.html

Have fun

 

Thank you very much sir! That Link right there is very useful! Thank you very much!

 

Alternatively check out http://www.ucdevelopers.page.tl simplified FBUS tutorial

 

I can't help but think that using a cell phone for such a data link is adding a lot of unnecessary complexity to what should be a "bullet-proof" system.

I don't know what the weather is like in your part of the world, but here in Florida, we had several major hurricanes blow through a few years ago. Many areas lost cellular communications altogether because microwave relay stations and antenna towers were destroyed. It took many months to restore communciations in some places. Besides, each cell phone will need to have it's bill paid on a regular basis. If someone forgets to pay the bill - the phone call won't go through.

You might consider using QRP transmitters and receivers instead. These are small, low-powered transmitters. Antennas could be designed to be highly directional. The power consumed could be very low. The main station could be set up to intermittently send a "status request" to each of the remote monitoring stations, which would reply back with their status, such as the current water level, battery power remaining, etc. If a station doesn't reply, your main station could report that fault so that a repair crew could be dispatched.

Check out ARRL's site:
http://www.arrl.org/
Lots of information on amateur radio.

 

The other alternative is to use a GSM modem, such as the Wavecom FastTrack modems. These use standard RS232 interfaces and AT commands. They are simple to use and simple to interface - and available on certain auction sites quite cheaply.