Development of an Arduino Based Electrical Instrumentation Unit for a Remote Monitoring Cathodic Protection System

Abstract

Underground pipelines are one of the most important infrastructures in the world for transporting liquid or gas. These pipelines are protected against corrosion through a cathodic protection (CP) system which the system was designed to achieve the required electrical current flow in order to protect the steel pipeline from corrosion. One major challenge in the pipeline operation is the measurement of the cathodic protection parameters needs a lot of time to travel and money due to the remotely located test post. Therefore, the monitoring system needs to be improved so it can provide minimal time to monitor the CP system and decreasing in term of operational costs. The developed monitoring unit is equipped with a sensor (ADS1115) as a voltage sensor for CP parameter measurement. The findings indicate that the device was capable to measure potential readings as precisely as a conventional multimeter after the experiment setup was conducted. Based on the data collection using Arduino based measurement unit, the potential readings for corrosion free is higher than corroded steel and the observation is conducted to study the behavior of steel in terms of cathodic protection. In addition, this unit will provide detailed information about analyzing potential differences without voltage divider error by using floating points and the measuring system for the CP system.