Evaluating Reliability of Communication in IoT based Water Monitoring Using ESP32
Keywords:
Internet of Things (IoT) Communication, Latency, Throughput, Packet loss, Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) ProtocolAbstract
In IoT-based technology solutions, there exist several tools for establishing connection with sensors and maintaining the flow of data between them. One of the commonly used solutions in IoT systems for sending and receiving data between connected devices is the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT). This communication protocol features a lightweight data transfer mechanism and can be used by the devices with low processing power and memory. In this paper, we propose an experimental model of an IoT-built water monitoring network based on ESP32 module to conduct an evaluation of reliability and communication properties of the MQTT communication protocol at different transmission rates. In this system, an ultrasonic sensor is incorporated into the ESP32-based device for collecting information about the level of water and its subsequent transfer via the MQTT communication protocol. The evaluation of the system will be conducted based on several parameters, such as average delay, availability, average throughput, average packet loss ratio (PLR), average packet delivery ratio (PDR), and sensor reliability. Several transmission rates will be considered in order to evaluate their influence on communication process and system reliability. According to the experimental results, higher transmission rates increase throughput but decrease latency, packet delivery, availability, packet loss, and accuracy of measurements. At the lowest transmission rate, the system achieves 98% availability and maintains packet delivery with low packet loss.
References
L. González, A. Gonzales, S. Gonzalez Martinez, and A. Cartuche, “A Low-Cost IoT Architecture Based on LPWAN and MQTT for Monitoring Water Resources in Andean Wetlands,” SN Computer Science, vol. 5, 2024, doi: 10.1007/s42979-023-02515-4.
Z. Kegenbekov and A. Saparova, “Using the MQTT protocol to transmit vehicle telemetry data,” Transportation Research Procedia, vol. 61, pp. 410–417, 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.trpro.2022.01.067.
C.-R. Dow, D.-B. Nguyen, S. Cheng, P.-Y. Lai, and S.-F. Hwang, “VIPER: an adaptive guidance and notification service system in internet of vehicles,” World Wide Web, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 1669–1697, Jul. 2019, doi: 10.1007/s11280-018-0617-7.
D. Silva, L. I. Carvalho, J. Soares, and R. C. Sofia, “A performance analysis of internet of things networking protocols: evaluating MQTT, CoAP, OPC UA,” Applied Sciences, vol. 11, no. 11, May 2021, doi: 10.3390/app11114879.
B. Mishra and A. Kertesz, “The use of MQTT in M2M and IoT systems: a survey,” IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 201071–201086, 2020, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3035849.
B. Mishra, B. Mishra, and A. Kertesz, “Stress-testing MQTT brokers: a comparative analysis of performance measurements,” Energies, vol. 14, no. 18, Sep. 2021, doi: 10.3390/en14185817.
E. Bertrand-Martinez, P. Dias Feio, V. de Brito Nascimento, F. Kon, and A. Abelém, “Classification and evaluation of IoT brokers: a methodology,” International Journal of Network Management, vol. 31, no. 3, May 2021, doi: 10.1002/nem.2115.
F. Azzedin and T. Alhazmi, “Secure data distribution architecture in IoT using MQTT,” Applied Sciences, vol. 13, no. 4, Feb. 2023, doi: 10.3390/app13042515.
G. Pettorru and M. Martalo, “A Persistent and Secure Publish-Subscriber Architecture for Low-Latency IoT Communications,” IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, vol. 23, pp. 729–739, 2025, doi: 10.1109/TNSM.2025.3635212.
S. Quincozes, T. Emilio, and J. Kazienko, “MQTT protocol: fundamentals, tools and future directions,” IEEE Latin America Transactions, vol. 17, no. 09, pp. 1439–1448, Sep. 2019, doi: 10.1109/TLA.2019.8931137.
C. Wan, A. Mehmood, M. Carsten, G. Epiphaniou, and J. Lloret, “A blockchain based forensic system for IoT sensors using MQTT protocol,” in 2022 9th International Conference on Internet of Things: Systems, Management and Security (IOTSMS), Nov. 2022, pp. 1–8, doi: 10.1109/IOTSMS58070.2022.10062190.
C. S. Yeh, S. L. Chen, and I. C. Li, “Implementation of MQTT protocol based network architecture for smart factory,” in Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B: Journal of Engineering Manufacture, Nov. 2021, vol. 235, no. 13, pp. 2132–2142, doi: 10.1177/09544054211014488.
S. Jeddou, F. Fernández, L. Diez, A. Baina, N. Abdallah, and R. Agüero, “Delay and energy consumption of MQTT over QUIC: an empirical characterization using commercial-off-the-shelf devices,” Sensors, vol. 22, no. 10, May 2022, doi: 10.3390/s22103694.
A. Gavrilov, M. Bergaliyev, S. Tinyakov, K. Krinkin, and P. Popov, “Using IoT protocols in real-time systems: protocol analysis and evaluation of data transmission characteristics,” Journal of Computer Networks and Communications, vol. 2022, pp. 1–18, Aug. 2022, doi: 10.1155/2022/7368691.
K. T. M. Tran, A. X. Pham, N. P. Nguyen, and P. T. Dang, “Analysis and Performance comparison of IoT message transfer protocols applying in real photovoltaic system,” International Journal of Networked and Distributed Computing, vol. 12, no. 1,
pp. 131–143, Jun. 2024, doi: 10.1007/s44227-024-00021-4.
H. Y. Chien et al., “A MQTT-API-compatible IoT security-enhanced platform,” International Journal of Sensor Networks, vol. 32, no. 1, 2020, doi: 10.1504/IJSNET.2020.104463.
S. L. Mohammed, A. Al-Naji, M. M. Farjo, and J. Chahl, “Highly accurate water level measurement system using a microcon-troller and an ultrasonic sensor,” IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, vol. 518, no. 4, May 2019, doi: 10.1088/1757-899X/518/4/042025.
A. Anggrawan, S. Hadi, and C. Satria, “IoT-based garbage container system using NodeMCU ESP32 microcontroller,” Journal of Advances in Information Technology, vol. 13, no. 6, 2022, doi: 10.12720/jait.13.6.569-577.
N. Kurniawan, “Electrical energy monitoring system and automatic transfer switch (ATS) controller with the internet of things for solar power plants,” Journal of Soft Computing Exploration, vol. 1, no. 1, Sep. 2020, doi: 10.52465/joscex.v1i1.2.
R. Lakshmanan, M. Djama, S. Perumal, and R. Abdulla, “Automated smart hydroponics system using internet of things,” International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 6389–6398, Dec. 2020, doi: 10.11591/ijece.v10i6.pp6389-6398.
D. Torres, J. P. Dias, A. Restivo, and H. S. Ferreira, “Real-time feedback in Node-RED for IoT development: an empirical study,” in 2020 IEEE/ACM 24th International Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real Time Applications (DS-RT), Sep. 2020,
pp. 1–8, doi: 10.1109/DS-RT50469.2020.9213544.
A. D. Salman, “IoT monitoring system based on MQTT publisher/subscriber protocol,” Iraqi Journal of Computer, Communication, Control and System Engineering, pp. 75–83, Jul. 2020, doi: 10.33103/uot.ijccce.20.3.7.
A. A. Zulfikri, D. Perdana, and G. Bisono, “Design and analysis of trash monitoring system prototype based on internet of things (IoT) using MQTT protocol,” Jurnal Infotel, vol. 10, no. 3, Aug. 2018, doi: 10.20895/infotel.v10i3.381.
A. Mamane, M. Fattah, M. El Ghazi, M. El Bekkali, Y. Balboul, and S. Mazer, “Scheduling algorithms for 5G networks and beyond: classification and survey,” IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 51643–51661, 2022, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3174579.
B. Mbarek, M. Ge, and T. Pitner, “An efficient mutual authentication scheme for internet of things,” Internet of Things, vol. 9, Mar. 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.iot.2020.100160.
R. Ratnasih, D. Perdana, and Y. G. Bisono, “Performance analysis and automatic prototype aquaponic of system design based on internet of things (IoT) using MQTT protocol,” Jurnal Infotel, vol. 10, no. 3, 2018, doi: 10.20895/infotel.v10i3.388.
M. F. Khan, E. A. Felemban, S. Qaisar, and S. Ali, “Performance analysis on packet delivery ratio and end-to-end delay of different network topologies in wireless sensor networks (WSNs),” in 2013 IEEE 9th International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Networks, Dec. 2013, pp. 324–329, doi: 10.1109/MSN.2013.74.
A. R. Abdellah and A. Koucheryavy, “Deep learning with long short-term memory for IoT traffic prediction,” Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), vol. 12525 LNCS, pp. 267–280, 2020, doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-65726-0_24.
H. H. Alshammari, “The internet of things healthcare monitoring system based on MQTT protocol,” Alexandria Engineering Journal, vol. 69, pp. 275–287, Apr. 2023, doi: 10.1016/j.aej.2023.01.065.
A. Barthwal and D. Acharya, “An IoT based sensing system for modeling and forecasting urban air quality,” Wireless Personal Communications, vol. 116, no. 4, pp. 3503–3526, Feb. 2021, doi: 10.1007/s11277-020-07862-6.
M. M. Jasim and A. M. Saed, “A study of the performance WSN in hospitals for patient monitoring,” AIP Conference Proceedings, vol. 3264, 020017, 2025, doi: 10.1063/5.0259422.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
CC BY
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. CC BY includes the following elements:
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
