FPGA BASED DATA PROCESSOR FOR DISCHARC' MEASUREMENT USING PROPELLER CURRENT METERS

Abstract

The dissertation focuses on the measurement of flow using propeller current-meters in open-channels. The propeller current meter, (an adaptation of turbine flow meter) is designed to measure the flow of water in the pipes/channels (closed and open). The dissertation involves the following work: Firstly, the proper number and location of propeller-current meters in open channel is worked out. As the flow is non-uniform along the width and depth of channel, so a matrix of measuring points is determined. It is then followed by measurement of speed of current meter. The point velocities measured by current meter are . then numerical interpolation to calculate the velocity profile along the depth and width of 'channel. Subsequently, the velocities at these locations are integrated w.r.t to depth and width of channel to obtain the total discharge in the open-channel. Data acquisition software has been developed for obtaining the data from the flow meters in `G' programming in Lab VIEW environment. Lastly, the FPGA-based data processor has been programmed and simulated for necessary data acquisition from these current meters, using VHDL as the hardware descriptor language (HDL).