Planning of a water distribution network sensors location for a leakage isolation

The paper presents a method of water distribution system sensors placement. Location of sensors depends on the purpose of monitoring of a network. In this paper, this objective has been defined as the ability to detect network failures (leakages). Therefore, the location of monitoring points should be designed so as to maximize the effectiveness of the location method. The main objective of the algorithm deployment of sensors is to find a placement that minimizes the number of components for the largest collection of leakages (faults) with the same signature. The simplest way of determining the best sensors placement is to use an exhaustive search method. However, even a slight increase in the number of possible sensors locations makes exhaustive search very inefficient. Therefore, the selection of sensors placement was performed by optimization using evolutionary genetic algorithm. The computations were performed on the example of the water supply network in Glubczyce town in Poland. 1. Monitoring of the water supply network Water losses in the distribution network is an important issue for the water companies. It should be reduced consistently and methodically. Techniques based on locating leaks by pressure monitoring devices are more effective and less costly than search in situ [5, 6]. Hence a placement of the monitoring devices is a crucial issue to the detection and isolation of the leakages. When designing a monitoring system one should make the choice of placement of measurement points, which is guided by two criteria: the total cost of installation of these points and the amount of information, which can be gathered with it. It is the problem of multi-criteria optimization. The first criterion is subject to minimization and the second to maximization. 2. Problem formulation Leakage detection is commonly based on the measurement data analysis. This problem was, however not solved in terms of local and international jural acts and norms [9, 10]. In the current Polish legal requirements, there is no specific guidance on the location of the sensors in the water supply networks. When considering the possibility of assessing the pertinence of the location of sensors for hydraulic parameters measurement, including pressure, in water networks one should pay attention to the diversity of monitoring purposes [10, 12]. It can therefore be concluded that the location of measurement points depends on the purpose of monitoring of the water supply network. In this paper, this objective has been defined as the ability The paper presented has been realized in frame of the research project of the Polish National Centre for Research and Development (NCBiR) co-financed by the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund, Submeasure 1.3.1. "Development Projects"; project title: “IT system supporting the optimization and planning of production and distribution of water intended for human consumption in the sub-region of the central and western province of Silesia”; project ref no POIG.01.03.01-14-034/12. Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland, [email protected], Institute of Automatic Control and Robotics Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland, [email protected], Institute of Automatic Control and Robotics