Automating flowmeter calibration process: Digital measurements from numerical displays using open-source optical character recognition tools

Authors

  • Gustavo Esteves Coelho LNEC – National Laboratory for Civil Engineering http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3543-6299
  • Alexandre Pinheiro LNEC – National Laboratory for Civil Engineering
  • Álvaro Silva Ribeiro LNEC – National Laboratory for Civil Engineering
  • Catarina Simões LNEC – National Laboratory for Civil Engineering
  • Luís Lages Martins LNEC – National Laboratory for Civil Engineering

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21014/actaimeko.v13i3.1767

Keywords:

Metrology, Automation, Process efficiency, Machine-readable data, Open-source programming

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for obtaining digital machine-readable measurements from numerical displays images. The proposed method provides means to digitalize an automate a previously manual and labour-intensive laboratory procedure for flowmeters calibration. The proposed method allows to obtain machine-readable readings from remote numerical displays with available-off-the-shelf hardware and open-source software. By using smartphones for remote image capture and streaming and the Tesseract open-source OCR engine, is possible to leverage the infrastructure’s digital transition, improve procedures efficiency and effectiveness while promoting sustainable actions with cost reductions.

Downloads

Published

2024-08-24

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 3 (2024)

Section

Research Papers

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Gustavo Esteves Coelho, Alexandre Pinheiro, Álvaro Silva Ribeiro, Catarina Simões, Luís Lages Martins

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  • Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).