Remote terminal unit for automatic dam monitoring system using a microcontroller

In order to enhance reliability and safety procedures of the dam, it is very important to gather dam behavior data in real-time monitoring system. The sensors installed into dam´s structure and in reservoir measure physical quantities of interests such as seepage flow, water level, deformation, pressure and temperature parameters. In this paper, the remote terminal unit (RTU) based on DSPIC30F4011 microcontroller is mainly designed to precisely measure, store and transmit instruments output to the computer server including real-time communication for dam behavior monitoring system. Moreover, in order to minimize the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) errors, the least square method was applied to determine ADC linear parameters of each analog input channel. The communication between RTU and computer server is fiber optic network for the real time application with redundant ring configuration for high reliability.