Standalone Solutions for Clean and Sustainable Water Access in Africa Through Smart UV/LED Disinfection, Solar Energy Utilization, and Wireless Positioning Support

Abstract

This paper provides a unique multi-disciplinary survey of standalone solutions for clean and sustainable water access in Africa and proposes a three-segment architecture, comprised of an UV-LED-based water disinfection unit, a solar-powered battery, and a wireless positioning system. In addition, our paper also provides initial snapshot results from all the three segments of the proposed architecture, as well as two examples of the water analysis and user-survey-based results collected from Togo, Africa. We believe that the features of our envisaged system such as long battery life, low maintenance cost, ability to significantly increase the quality and disinfect at least 1.5 l/min of water and ability to offer wireless positioning without the need to access a cellular or WiFi network, for accurate annotation of water sources, localization of misplaced or lost disinfection systems, and user standalone positioning capabilities, are attractive features towards improving the quality of life of people with limited access to potable water or to water that fulfills international quality criteria.