DESIGN PROTOTYPE FOR TURBIDITY MEASUREMENT BASED ON DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING AND POTENTIAL FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION

Abstract

Water is the most important compound on earth. Water is essentially needed by living things. As the water has different characteristics depending on the quality and the substance found in it. Turbidity measurement can be performed as the measurement to determine the water quality. This research aims to develop a design of a prototype for the turbidity meter chamber box as a device for turbidity measurement, and also to identify the potential of the turbidity measurement by using digital image processing method. The prototype of the turbidity meter consists of drawing part designs by using FreeCAD and printed by 3D printing to make a portable device. The device was configured by a digital image processing method to capture the image samples to get an image sequence from the water sample standard calibration and hence obtaining a good clear image. The data are processed with ImageJ software to count the particle with the same treatment and parameters. Data were analyzed using Correlation Analysis, Linear and Polynomial Regression and also Independent T-test as hypothesis testing. The result shows that the turbidity meter using the digital image processing method doesn’t have a significant difference or in other words, it is equal with the nephelometric turbidity meter because the P-values show above 0.05 where it fails to reject the null hypothesis at the 95% confidence level. Hence, the device and the method have the potential to measure the turbidity for water quality.