Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2018)
IEEE Conference Record: # 42666; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3570-4
Simultaneous Measurement of Liquid Level and
Temperature using Capacitive Sensor
Santhosh KV, Manik Gupta
Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering,
Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal University, Manipal, India
kv.santhu@gmail.com
Abstract— Paper presents a technique for simultaneous
measurement of liquid temperature along with level of liquid
using capacitive level sensor and estimators/ soft sensors. The
objective of the proposed work is to develop an estimator for
measuring the liquid temperature in a process tank by analyzing
the available capacitive level sensor. Input-output behavior of the
capacitive level sensor is analyzed for variation in liquid level and
temperature variations. A non-parametric soft sensor is designed
using artificial neural network and fuzzy logic techniques are
used to compute the relation between the capacitive level sensor
outputs for variations in liquid temperature. The designed
measurement technique is validated by performing the
experiment in simulation and on practical setup. Results obtained
by the technique shows successful implementation of proposed
soft sensor.
Keywords— Artifiical Neural Network; Capacitive level sensor;
Fuzzy logic; level measurement; soft sensor.
I. INTRODUCTION
In industries it can be seen that most of the plants are
automated. To make a system fully automated, many
parameters have to be measured. To measure these parameters,
we need sensors or measuring devices followed by suitable
instrumentation to meet the requirements. Process parameters
in most of the situations are measured using hard sensors for
process monitoring purpose where sensor availability, accuracy
and sampling frequency governs the successful completion of
monitoring process. In some situations, data collected from
sensor may not be useful because of many reasons like failure
of sensors, failure of data acquisition system, lower sampling
frequency of sensor and removal of sensor for maintenance
purpose. This loss of data reduces the process monitoring loop
efficiency which may increase the production cost, degrade the
product quality and it may also cause a threat to life.
Many researchers have discussed about liquid level
measurement technique few of which are discussed here.
Paper [1], reported a comb shape electrode design for
capacitance to measure liquid level. Optical fiber laser used in
measurement of liquid level using the effect of interference is
discussed in [2]. In [3], a fuzzy based liquid level model for
two phase liquid flow is reported using capacitance
tomography. Capacitance Level Sensor (CLS) is used for level
measurement of ink is discussed in [4]. Color pyrometer
based liquid level measurement is discussed in [5]. Use of
resistive probes for measurement of liquid level is reported in
978-1-5386-3570-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
[6]. In [7], liquid level measurement using pressure sensor is
reported. Electromagnetic based liquid level measurement in a
free-flow pipeline is reported in [8]. Level of saline liquid
having a small surface is measured using high frequency
electromagnetic sensor in [9]. Measurement of liquid level
using optical fiber is discussed in [10]. Measurement of level
of sea water using image processing algorithms is discussed in
[11]. Coreless multimode fiber is used for measurement of
liquid level measurement [12]. In [13], a method for
measurement of low conductive fluid level using inductive
sensor is reported. In [14], implementation of level
measurement process with adaptation to liquid parameters is
reported by using capacitance level sensor. Use of acoustic
based sensors to measure the liquid level is discussed in [15],
[16]. In [17], CLS is used for remote sensing application.
Though a lot a research are reported on liquid level
measurement, most of these are discussed to work under the
restriction of area, range, etc. To achieve a complete
measurement often multiple sensor need to be used.
When multiple measuring devices are used, they introduce
delay/noise in the system which aggregates in the process
causing a decrease in the efficiency of control loop. In large
plants, monitoring loop will be included in order to get better
response or better outcome. Introduction of monitoring loop
increases the maintenance cost of the plant. Reduction in
monitored parameters brings down the cost and will introduce
problems in the plant.
In some situations process parameters cannot be measured
online, in such situation offline measurements is carried on.
Process parameters of the plant can be estimated through
mathematical models of plant thus avoiding the requirement for
measuring devices and good control over the process is
possible thus increasing the reliability [18], [19].
Plant models used for the estimation of process parameters
are known as soft sensors. In the proposed work a non-
parametric soft sensor technique using Artificial Neural
Network (ANN) and fuzzy logic algorithms are discussed. The
comparison of results obtained from both the techniques are
also reported. It is seen that neural network based soft sensing
technique produces better result.
II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Figure 1 shows the setup of liquid level process used for
measurement of liquid level. A parallel plate capacitor is used
570
 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2018)
IEEE Conference Record: # 42666; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3570-4

in this setup for liquid level measurement and is immersed in

the tank [20], [21]. Capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor is
given by
∈ ∈
= (1)

Where
- Capacitance
∈ – permittivity of air
∈ – relative permittivity
- overlapping area of plates
- Distance between the plates.

Here water acts as the dielectric medium between the

plates. When the tank is empty, air will be the dielectric
medium between the parallel plates and relative
permittivity will be 1. When the water level starts
increasing, two parallel capacitance will be formed, one
with dielectric medium as air and other with water. As
the liquid level rises area of capacitor with water as
dielectric increase and thus increasing its capacitance. On
the other side surface area of capacitor with air as
dielectric reduces and thus is the capacitance. The
effective capacitance will be the function of height which Fig. 2. Experimental setup of CLS.
is given by eq. (2).
Capacitance change from the CLS should be
converted to an active signal for further computation. For
∈ ∈
= + ( − ) (2) converting capacitance to a standard voltage value a
combination of 555 timer and differential amplifier are
used. Figure 3 shows the circuit used to convert
capacitance to frequency using a 555 astable multi-
vibrator. The relation between the capacitance and
obtained frequency is given in eq. (3)

C2

H
C1

L
Fig. 3. 555 timer circuit.
d
/ = ( )(
Hz (3)
)

Fig. 1. Schematic of CLS.

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 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2018)
IEEE Conference Record: # 42666; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3570-4

Response at room temperature

1.5

output voltage in volts

1

0.5

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Level in cms

Fig. 5. Measured output for liquid level variation.

2.5
20 C
23 C
28 C
2
Fig. 4. Frequency to voltage converter . 35 C
40 C
Voltage in volts
Frequency to voltage converter circuit is designed to 1.5
45 C
50 C
covert the frequency into voltage which is as shown in
Fig.3. The relation between obtained voltage and
frequency is shown in eq. (4) and eq. (5). 1

/ = × × 1.1 × × × / V (4)
0.5

Assuming VT = 1.9 V
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
/ = × 2.09 × × × / V (5) Level in cms

Fig. 6. Response of level measurement technique for different water

III. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
To understand the working of the capacitance level
measurement process and analyze its characteristics an
experimentation is carried on. The output obtained of the level
measurement for variation in input liquid level is characterized
and plot in Fig. 5. From figure it is seen that output of level
measurement process is nonlinear. The experiment was carried
on at a room temperature of about 28 0C. Now to analyze the
behavior of the process measuring instruments it is subjected
to test for varying input level and liquid temperature in the
ranges of 20 0C to 50 0C. Results obtained is plot in Fig. 6.
From the figure we observe that the output voltage of the level
measurement system varies with changes in liquid level and
also with temperature of liquid.
From these obtained characteristics of level measurement
technique by capacitance level sensor it is clear that, on
analyzing the output we can correlate it with both temperature
and liquid level.
temperatures.
IV. DESIGN OF SOFT SENSOR
Data driven and model driven soft sensors are the two ways
for designing soft sensors. Model driven methods are mainly
developed depending on the physical and chemical principles
and complete knowledge about the process thus model driven
models are called as white box models. When there is less or
no knowledge about the process is available, then model is
developed by observation or experimentation of the process
thus data driven models are called as black box models. There
are some methods which use both model driven and data driven
approaches for model development named as hybrid or grey
box technique.
x Parametric technique
x Non parametric techniques
A technique is called parametric if the relations can be
represented by a finite dimensional model which can be
defined using finite number of parameters. In parametric
method, parameters are assumed to follow a particular
distribution thus the output will be estimated for a particular

978-1-5386-3570-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 572

 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2018)
IEEE Conference Record: # 42666; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3570-4

input. A non-parametric method is represented by estimation of

a model which is of infinite dimension and the dimension of
model changes depending on the size of data used for training.
In nonparametric method estimated values will not be
following any assumed distribution.
In non-parametric techniques, there are different techniques
like statistical methods, machine learning language like neural
networks, principal component analysis, support vector
machines, etc. which can be of supervised and unsupervised. In
supervised training, expected outputs will be known depending
on which the model will be trained and in unsupervised
learning there will not be availability of output so it should be
self-trained.
Fig. 8. Error histogram post training
In the proposed work non-parametric technique using both
artificial neural network and fuzzy logic technique is used to
design soft sensor to compute the liquid level and also estimate
the temperature of liquid simultaneously.
A. Artificial Neural Network (ANN).
ANN is built with a motivation of working of biological
neurons which collect, process and deliver the information.
ANN is made of interconnections between numbers of
processing units called as neurons..
Structure of ANN is shown in Fig. 7 Input neurons collect
the information and process it and gives output which is input
for the neurons present in hidden layer and then the output of
hidden layer neurons are given as input the output layer
neuron. These neurons are trained in iterations depending on
the data collected and nearness of the model to the actual
model can be improved by more training.
Fig. 9. Regression graph

B. Fuzzy logic
Fuzzy logic algorithm deals with the creation of two kinds
of functions one the input and other output membership
function. Membership functions are considered based on the
input and the target output. Various combination of
membership function are used to for various temperature.
Figure 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 shows the input and output
membership function

Fig. 7. Representation of neural network

In the proposed work back propagation based neural

network with two hidden layers have 5 and 6 neurons
respectiely is used. For training artificial bee colony algorithm
is made use of. Regression plot obtained post training is
shown in Fig. 9, and error histogram is shown in Fig. 8.

Fig. 10. Fuzzy logic input membership function at temperature of 20 0C

978-1-5386-3570-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 573

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2018)
IEEE Conference Record: # 42666; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3570-4

Fig. 15. Fuzzy output membership function for 48 0C

Fig. 11. Fuzzy out for 200C
Fuzzy logic algorithms are created to show the output
temperature and also level of liquid both simultenously.

V. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

Fig. 12. Fuzzy input membership function for 35 0C
Once the soft sensors for instantaneous measurement of
liquid level and temperature are designed using ANN and
fuzzy based technique, it is tested with practical data to
evaluate the performance. For testing, the range of liquid level
is considered from 0 to 40 cm and changes in liquid
temperature is between 20 0C to 50 0C. Tests are conducted for
variations in both liquid level and temperature under static
conditions results obtained is tabulated in Table 1.
Table 1: Result of liquid level system

Sl. Actual Measured by Measured by

No. Fuzzy soft ANN soft sensor
sensor
Level Temp Level Temp Level Temp
in cm in 0C in cm in 0C in cm in 0C
1. 4.00 48 3.98 48.3 3.97 47.8
2. 4.00 44 3.99 44.2 3.98 44.1
3. 9.00 36 8.96 35.7 9.02 36.4
4. 9.00 20 8.97 20.2 9.01 19.98
Fig. 13. Fuzzy output membership function for 35 0C 5. 9.00 23 8.99 22.9 8.97 22.92
6. 15.00 33 14.98 33.1 15.04 32.9
7. 15.00 18 14.97 18.3 14.97 18.1
8. 21.00 19 21.03 19.12 21.03 18.98
9. 21.00 27 21.21 26.97 21.3 27.1
10. 21.00 48 21.21 48.3 21.27 47.99
11. 26.00 20 25.89 19.92 25.92 19.95
12. 26.00 23 25.78 22.8 25.81 22.9
13. 26.00 34 26.3 33.87 26.42 34.21
14. 32.00 18 32.1 17.86 32.2 17.86
15. 32.00 25 32.1 24.8 31.92 24.83
16. 32.00 35 32.1 34.9 31.87 35.1
17. 38.00 32 38.21 32.42 37.88 31.86
Fig. 14. Fuzzy input membership function for 48 0C 18. 38.00 19 37.84 19.1 38.1 18.88
19. 38.00 35 37.91 34.6 37.64 35.23

From the results shown in Table 1 it is clear that both the non-
parametric soft sensing techniques using ANN and fuzzy logic
algorithms are able to measure simultaneously temperature and
liquid level, accurately within the accepted errors limits. The
root means square of percentage error obtained from ANN and
fuzzy are 0.61% and 0.67% respectively. From the root mean

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 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Trends in Electronics and Informatics (ICOEI 2018)
IEEE Conference Record: # 42666; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3570-4
square of percentage error it is seen that ANN based soft sensor
produced more accurate results as compared to that of fuzzy
logic based soft sensor.
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