A New Methodology-Based Sensorial System with Which to Determine the Volume of Liquid Contained in a Cylindrical Tank Subjected to Full Variations in Its Orientation

Abstract

It is necessary to determine the volume of water contained in a tank for a wide range of applications, such as the automation and monitoring of industrial operations. In the context of the marine industry, the aforementioned information plays a vital role in the effective management of submerged devices, specifically in relation to their depths and/or inclinations. In these cases, it is not feasible to quantify the volume of liquid in a tank by means of direct measurements, owing to the fact that devices can be subjected to changes in their orientation. This variation in inclination could have a variety of causes, such as the implementation of automated emersion–immersion maneuvers in a TEC or variations in depth in an AUV. Nevertheless, it can be deduced by considering the level of the tank and its geometric properties. This paper presents a new methodology-based sensorial system (composed of three capacitive sensors and an inclinometer) for accurate determination of the volume of a liquid contained within a cylindrical tank subjected to full variations in its orientation. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology-based sensorial system has been verified by the results obtained from experiments conducted on a laboratory platform, thus demonstrating the high reliability of the model experiment and the relative errors study carried out.