Development of an android based mobile application to collect gas meter reading with appropriate customers approval

Abstract

There are different types of reading collection processes using different types of meters or additional hardware across the world by different gas distribution organizations. In this project, a generalized Android application has been designed for the gas consumption metering purpose for gas distribution organization. This Android application system considers a metering system which includes a gas meter, meter reading collection, customers' verification from customer point of view, data processing, consumption calculation, bill processing, etc. Variation of billing system from one utility company to another are pointed out and generalization is devised in this design of this Android application. Existing billing system of local gas Distribution Company has been considered as standard in proposed system during design phase. User friendly nature has been given a priority. This method can be very cost-effective and can be used for household premises where proper billing system is the main concern. In the proposed system, subscriber can have easy access to billing system and meter reader resulting prompt meter reading, transparency, greater accountability and subsequently company may have greater revenue collection. The design has been completed by drawing the E-R model for the application. The logical design is then extended to physical model which in turn is used to design the table structures for the proposed database. This Android application has been developed using Cordova platform through command window, phonegap, Apache ANT, bootstrap, HTML 5,Java Script and CSS. Using this Android application meter reader captures the image and sends to the server. The server does pre-processing on image and OCR may extract Meter reading and Customer number. Using these extracted details Bill may be generated, updating the database and PDF of the bill may be send via mail to the customer. Based on the proposed application system, a generalized database has been developed utilizing PHP and MySQL. Finally, the implementation guideline of the proposed application and database has been formulated. The software issues during implementation of the designed database have been addressed in this project. The developed application is likely to play an important role in the automation of the meter reading collection system of gas utility companies.