Design and evaluation of a low‑cost real‑time fluid-level monitoring system for fuel stations

Abstract

Accurate fluid level management in fuel stations is hampered by inventory errors, delayed shortage detection and costly proprietary sensors. We designed and built a low‑cost, open‑source monitoring system using an Arduino Uno, an HC‑SR04 ultrasonic sensor, a NodeMCU ESP8266 and a DHT11 temperature sensor. Validation was restricted to static short-term conditions, with a prototype tested in a 200 cm tank over 62 hours and 32 paired measurements collected at two-hour intervals. Prototype readings were compared with dipstick measurements after temperature compensation. The system achieved a mean error of 0.03 cm, a mean absolute error of 0.91 cm, a standard deviation of 1.06 cm and a root‑mean‑square error of 1.05 cm, with a 95 % confidence interval of ±0.37 cm. These results demonstrate that a calibrated and temperature‑compensated ultrasonic sensor can deliver centimetre‑level accuracy suitable for inventory management in resource‑constrained fuel stations. Future work will extend validation to dynamic transfers, sloshing/vibration, humidity effects, and long-term drift in operational tanks.