Conference Paper

Detection of water leakage in buried pipes using infrared technology; A comparative study of using high and low resolution infrared cameras for evaluating distant remote detection

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Abstract

Water is one of the most precious commodities around the world. However, significant amount of water is lost daily in many countries through broken and leaking pipes. This paper investigates the use of low and high resolution infrared systems to detect water leakage in relatively dry countries. The overall aim is to develop a non-contact and high speed system that could be used to detect leakage in pipes remotely via the effect of the change in humidity on the temperature of the ground due to evaporation. A small scale experimental test rig has been constructed to simulate water leakage in The Great Man-Made River Project in Libya, taking into consideration the dryness level of the desert sand and the scaled dimensions of the system. The results show that the infrared technology is an effective technology in detecting water leakage in pipes. The low resolution system has been found as valuable as the high resolution system in detecting water leakage. The results indicate the possibility of distant remote detection of leakage in water systems using infrared technologies which could be mobilised using drones, helium balloons, aeroplanes or other similar technologies.

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... An acoustic detector searches for certain attributes in acoustic waves from leaks, such as consistent amplitude, using filters and other frequency analysis systems to discriminate the noise of leaks from other environmental noises [6], [8]. Moreover, water leaks change the temperature of the pipeline outer wall and its surrounding environment, where those thermal anomalies can be detected using analog active temperature sensors [9], and thermal imaging systems [10] - [12]. ...
... Since the MLX90614 infrared sensor has an accuracy of +/-0.5°C, the thermal change on the surface due to a leak must be greater than 0.5°C to be detected accurately. The measurements of analog active temperature sensors in [9], and infrared thermal images [10] - [12], shows that leaks can cause a temperature change on the ground of a few Celsius degrees, which indicates the feasibility of an accurate detection using the MLX90614 infrared sensor. Furthermore, the profile of the high-resolution infrared image in [10,Fig. ...
... The measurements of analog active temperature sensors in [9], and infrared thermal images [10] - [12], shows that leaks can cause a temperature change on the ground of a few Celsius degrees, which indicates the feasibility of an accurate detection using the MLX90614 infrared sensor. Furthermore, the profile of the high-resolution infrared image in [10,Fig. 7] showed a measurable diameter around 10 cm. ...
Article
Leaks in water distribution networks produce significant economic losses. These leaks from underground pipelines affect the surrounding environment in different ways that can be detected using various technologies. This paper introduces an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) equipped with an infrared temperature sensor to remotely detect thermal anomalies on the surface caused by underground leaking pipelines. An MLX90614 low-cost thermopile infrared sensor was proposed to trace the surface temperature above leaking pipelines and record the corresponding position of each reading. Two positioning techniques were tested independently: a satellite navigation system and odometry using a magnetic encoder. Raw data from the temperature sensor along with the corresponding locations were recorded on a MicroSD card using an Arduino Uno Board through analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bus. Experimental work showed the ability of the robot in detecting thermal anomalies caused by leaks accurately with the required trace resolution. Finally, a 2D convolutional neural network solution is introduced for distinguishing true detections from false alarms.
... For overground pipelines, although structural failures, such as cracks and leakages can be identified visually, often, these failures can only be detected at their critical stages when they become disruptive. For buried, underground and submarine pipelines, where visual inspection is not possible, inspection tools, which are either human-operated [2,3] or automated [4,5], are used. ...
... Back-projection; back-propagation; GPR-camera fusion; Bayern approximation [2,[60][61][62][63][64][65] Impact Echo (IE) Sustained duration; resonance analysis; correction factor validation; Edge reflection analysis; noise removal [19,[66][67][68][69][70] Acoustic Emission (AE)/ Vibration Analysis Frequency analysis; vibrational amplitude and fluid transient analysis; time-difference cross-correlation; wavelet entropy analysis; machine learning classification [1,[9][10][11]30,38,71,72] Resonance Shift Analysis System resonant frequency, amplitude, quality factor and bandwidth shifts analysis [73][74][75][76][77][78] Hydraulic Transient Analysis Finite difference modelling; linear estimator; short duration transient test; fluid transient harmonic damping analysis; negative pressure method; gradient method; sequential probability ratio technique; wavelet transforms [12,13,31,[79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86] Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) Piezoelectric sensors; capacitive sensors [87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94] Magnetic Flux Leakage (MFL) Amplitude of MFL vs. length/width of defect; machine learning classification; decoupling algorithm [4,16,17,[95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102] Pulsed Eddy Current (PEC) Electrical conductance analysis; magnetic permeability analysis; differential probe [103][104][105][106][107] Fibre Optic Sensing Spectral analysis; hoop strain analysis [5,[108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116] Mobile Sensing/Robots/Drones Pressure gradient analysis; pipeline inspection gauge (PIG); driving mechanisms; manoeuvrability [3,4,27,28,95,108,[117][118][119][120][121][122] Process Tomography ...
... Electrical capacitance measurement; magnetic induction measurement; ultrasonic measurement; image reconstruction; linear back-projection; narrow-band pass filtering [32,33,[123][124][125] Radiography Pixel intensity vs. pipe thickness; double wall double image technique; machine learning classification [126][127][128][129] Infrared Thermography Thermal emissivity; thermal capacity; pulsed thermography; step heating thermography; lock-in thermography; spectral analysis, [3,18,[130][131][132] Optical Inspection Light intensity of image vs. surface condition/texture [133][134][135][136] Gamma-ray Transmission Transmission intensity vs. pipe thickness [137] Vapour Sampling Vapour sensing tube [138] Fluorescence Wavelength of fluorescence vs. type of spillage [139][140][141] Electromechanical Impedance (EMI) EMI vs. structural integrity; piezoelectric-induced vibration; measurement of electrical impedance [142][143][144][145][146][147][148] Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) Impedance measurement; polarisation resistance vs. corrosion rate [149,150] Corrosion Growth Modelling Stochastic corrosion model; Monte Carlo simulation [151][152][153][154][155] Distributed Cyber-physical Systems ...
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Pipeline networks have been widely utilised in the transportation of water, natural gases, oil and waste materials efficiently and safely over varying distances with minimal human intervention. In order to optimise the spatial use of the pipeline infrastructure, pipelines are either buried underground, or located in submarine environments. Due to the continuous expansion of pipeline networks in locations that are inaccessible to maintenance personnel, research efforts have been ongoing to introduce and develop reliable detection methods for pipeline failures, such as blockages, leakages, cracks, corrosion and weld defects. In this paper, a taxonomy of existing pipeline failure detection techniques and technologies was created to comparatively analyse their respective advantages, drawbacks and limitations. This effort has effectively illuminated various unaddressed research challenges that are still present among a wide array of the state-of-the-art detection methods that have been employed in various pipeline domains. These challenges include the extension of the lifetime of a pipeline network for the reduction of maintenance costs, and the prevention of disruptive pipeline failures for the minimisation of downtime. Our taxonomy of various pipeline failure detection methods is also presented in the form of a look-up table to illustrate the suitability, key aspects and data or signal processing techniques of each individual method. We have also quantitatively evaluated the industrial relevance and practicality of each of the methods in the taxonomy in terms of their respective deployability, generality and computational cost. The outcome of the evaluation made in the taxonomy will contribute to our future works involving the utilisation of sensor fusion and data-centric frameworks to develop efficient, accurate and reliable failure detection solutions.
... Water can be pumped from water grid when being in a laboratory, whereas, in an outdoor field, it is pumped from a tank placed near the testing location [39]. Finally, testing of thermal leakage detection systems through the thermal effect of leaked water on the surface of surrounding soil, was noticed to be conducted in both outdoor and laboratory environments where the experimental setup consisted of a box made of wood or other material and filled with soil under which a plastic pipe is buried [9], [10], [14]. In this paper, the testing of the proposed AAT sensing system was carried in both soft and hard prototypes the characteristics of which is detailed in the next section. ...
... Then, as a projection, if we multiply FIGURE 11. A high-resolution IR image and the associated temperature profiles [10]. ...
... According to the profile in Fig. 11, the temperature difference between locations directly above the leaking section of a buried pipeline at a depth of 110 mm and horizontally adjacent points was around 4 • C in [10], which is comparable to the maximum temperature difference recorded in this paper (1.47 • C). In the experiments in [10], water had a temperature lower than that of the soil, and thus leaked water decreased the temperature at the surface, where the prototype was simulating the case of water being pumped from deep wells into the Great Man-made River of Libya which has lower temperature than that at the surface, unlike our case, where water mostly comes from desalination plants located above the surface. ...
Article
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The change in the temperature of an underground water pipeline and its surrounding environment caused by a leakage has been detected by a variety of devices. Among the most popular technologies are infrared cameras, distributed temperature sensing using fiber optic cables, and analog active temperature sensors. In this paper, a novel low-cost leakage detection system composed of two analog active temperature sensors is presented. The proposed system detects water leakages by comparing the readings of two analog active temperature sensors, one at the surface at a depth of 2 cm of a sand layer covering a buried water pipeline and the other is adjacent to the first sensor at the same depth in a thermally insulated portion by a polystyrene barrier. The results of the heat flow simulation developed with FEMM (Finite Element Method Magnetics) 4.2, which is free, open source, cross-platform capable of solving heat flow problems, showed that the addition of the insulation is expected to increase the difference between the readings of the sensors from 0.011 to 0.063 K (• C) when there is a leakage, and thus the addition of the insulation can be effective in making the effect of leaked water on the surface temperature more detectable. Experimental results indicated the capability of the proposed system in detecting water leakage which caused a temperature difference of 1.47 • C after 30 minutes of running a leaking water system. Furthermore, a laser communication system was built to allow for the transmission of an alarm signal from the sensing node above the underground pipeline to a master node which should have an internet connection to upload information to a cloud storage which can be accessed by different users. INDEX TERMS Laser communication, leakage detection, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), temperature sensors, underground water pipeline.
... Fig. 1 shows a raw 2D slice captured by a 1.5 GHz GPR of an underground water leakage and a 3D processed image formed by combining many of these 2D slices. Secondly, IR cameras, thermographic devices that detect infrared radiation of bodies, rely on the change in the temperature of the surface above water leaked which rises by capillarity through the subsurface [3]. Fig. 2 shows a processed IR image of a thermal anomaly on a surface caused by a leakage from a pipeline buried at a depth of 110 mm. ...
... A high-resolution IR image of a surface above a simulated underground leakage and the associated temperature profiles[3]. ...
... Most popular devices that were used in leakage detection: (a) GPR[10]. (b) IR Camera with a model proposing attaching it to a drone[3] (Note that a drone with an integrated IR camera is currently commercially available[11]). (c) Acoustic Detector (An acoustic sensor is placed on the ground and connected to an analyzer held by a worker to process and analyze the received signal and display. ...
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Water leaks in the distribution network produce significant losses and cause serious economic inconvenience especially in areas with water shortage. In this paper, the operational aspects of the most popular offline detection technologies, ground penetrating radars (GPR’s), infrared (IR) cameras, and acoustic detectors, were compared. The authors also studied the potential of using the recent Terahertz imaging technology for the same application. Acoustic detectors were found the most suitable technology for the atmosphere in UAE, where the levels of humidity and, consequently, soil moisture are high, because both of GPRs and IR cameras operational capability to detect leaks tend to decrease sharply as soil moisture increases. On the other side, a conventional acoustic detector has very limited scope of detection. This paper presents a method of expanding the sensing component of acoustic detectors by connecting acoustic sensors through a digital communication system using the 3G/4G networks to a monitoring center with an acoustic spectrum analyzer. The novelty of this system is its ability to provide offline detection of leakages in the underground water pipelines remotely without deforming the surrounding environment or adjusting the acoustic detector’s analyzing system. Simulation results proves the ability of the system to reconstruct the input noise signal at the end of the proposed network which is to be connected to the acoustic analyzer.
... Reference [10] proposes a solution for leakage detection in distribution networks for regions with dry soil. The paper uses the variation of temperature presented by the thermal spots in the images as a potential water leak. ...
... Although the proposal of using thermal images to detect water leaks has been made by other authors for different application cases, such as [11], [10], [12], [3] and [4], they did not present a digital image processing to show its efficiency, which open possibilities to develop an automatic system which is one of the tools used in smart cities to resources managements. ...
... Reference [10] shows that the temperature variation in the soil is considered as potential local water leakage and showed in their graphics this concept. Thus, this paper proposes the image processing methodology shown in Fig. 2. ...
... The ground in the vicinity of a damaged water pipe, due to increased moisture content, has a different thermal conductivity, which causes a different temperature distribution in the vicinity of the leak compared to the surrounding area. Thermal imaging scanning is performed by cameras installed on drones or helicopters [39]. ...
... Temperature drops and ground freezing in winter are causes of water supply failures that become apparent after the frost has subsided. Fittings installed on water supply lines, such as gate valves and hydrants, are particularly vulnerable to this type of failure [39]. The strengths of the GPR method are the ability to detect water leaks in pipes not only made of metal and the possibility of performing tests at a speed of up to 15-30 km of network per hour. ...
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... In general the detection of water in all states (solid, liquid, gas) is not a new topic, but there are always details in the individual applications [1][2][3][4][5]. A lot of investigation was made to measure the dry weight or moisture for example of wood, grain and a lot of other specimens [1]. ...
... A lot of investigation was made to measure the dry weight or moisture for example of wood, grain and a lot of other specimens [1]. Therefore different physical working principles for water detection are known [2,3]. What we want to explore is the water amount on different surfaces, but the options for measurement are limited. ...
... The images recorded correspond to different spectral bands with varying wavelengths. Water emissions a b Fig. 4. Water loss detection using drones; a -flight equipment, b -working mode (Shakmak and Al-Habaibeh, 2015) are highlighted by changes in the natural environment in the site area, such as enriching vegetation or changes in soil water content. The cameras used can monitor the thermal radiation emitted by the soil as a result of the increase in humidity. ...
... The use of thermal imaging cameras is not recommended for wooded areas or areas with abundant vegetation such as agricultural crops. a b Fig. 5. System made of a thermal imaging camera and a GSP system attached to a helium balloon carried by a vehicle; a -detection equipment; b -working mode (Shakmak and Al-Habaibeh, 2015) The analysis of Table 1 shows that satellite detection may be adopted for the majority of ground characteristics. An exception is the monitoring of the Moldova River undercrossing construction. ...
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... It is defined as the ratio of true positive samples to the total number of actual positive samples. Recall can be expressed by Equation (5). A higher recall indicates that the model is able to detect a higher proportion of positive samples, which is desirable in tasks where missing positive samples is more costly than false alarms. ...
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... The >8°C hypothermia in response to massive MC degranulation was driven partially by diminished BAT thermogenesis. Although we did not observe vasodilation in the skin as a mechanism for heat dissipation, we cannot rule out the possibility that the infrared imaging that we used to assess vasodilation may be compromised by MC-mediated vascular leakage that is occurring concurrently (46,47). ...
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... Carreño has tried to detect buried pipes using thermal images and data mining [29]. A simple experiment to showcase the effect of different resolution thermal cameras in leakage detection has been presented in [30]. Penteado in 2018 has experimented with the digital image processing method with thermal images. ...
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... Recently, a few studies employed IRT for water pipe diagnostics; however, most of them focused on leakage in pipes [13][14][15][16]. Ref. [13] developed a novel method utilizing IRT and ground penetrating radar (GPR) technology to detect and locate the leakage point in the pipeline network. ...
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In recent years, scholars have completed many studies on the fault diagnosis of air-conditioning systems based on Building Energy Management System (BEMS) data, but these studies seldom cover the leakage of water pipes and the damage of insulation layer, that are common but undetected by BEMS. To fill in the gaps, an automatic diagnosis algorithm based on infrared thermal images is proposed here to detect fault occurs on insulated heating pipes. This method can automatically diagnosis of pipeline leakage and insulation damage, so as to prevent pipeline corrosion and heat loss. The algorithm includes two sections: an image segmentation processor and a fault diagnosis module. The fault diagnosis module can detect three categories of faults: insulation damaged, insulation fall-off, and pipeline leakage. Experimental study demonstrates that the overall accuracy of the algorithm is 97.59%, while filed studies in commercial buildings exhibits an accuracy of 92.74%. These data prove the algorithm's feasibility in practice and the method can be applied with an infrared camera installed on an inspection robot or at a fixed location in a machine room. Although images of hot water pipes are used as inputs of the research, this method is also applicable to cold water pipes by modifying relevant parameters.
... The cameras are able to visualize the leak despite the leak itself being not being evident on the surface by visual inspection. [40] Field Thermal Infrared Scanner South Dakota area -Leaks in buried rural water pipelines can be detected using thermal infrared images collected under proper conditions. ...
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... An experimental setup in the Great Man-Made River Project in Libya was chosen due to the dryness level of the desert sand. The analysis of acquired thermal images from low-resolution (IRISYS) and high-resolution (FLIR A310F) cameras has concluded that both cameras could identify the leaks [92]. ...
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... Nowadays, detection technology using thermal image is rapidly increasing and being used in various applications. The study of pipe leakage found that thermal images were one of the most accurate methods of detecting gas leakage [2] [3]. This technique also can be applied to detect breast cancer [4]. ...
... There are several methods in literature for detection of leakages in pipelines such as infrared, SVM Classification and automated meter reading [3][4][5]. The Infrared technique is utilized to recognize pipe leakages moderately in the nations which contain deserts using impact of the difference in the temperature of the ground because of the leakages. ...
Conference Paper
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This methodology uses information from the water flow sensors which recognize leakage in water pipeline progressively. Testing the leakage in pipeline is done on every sensor hub and data is then exchanged to the Arduino UNO micro-controller for further procedure. The output of this proposed strategy can be accomplished by contrasting different water flow reading with the sensors. The threshold value is set by taking examination of the sensor reading. If the water flow reading is not exactly limit esteem, at that point leakage is available in the pipeline is appeared on the yield show. Consistent flow is set for no leakage condition.
... The image captured using an IR thermography camera is referred to as a thermogram. The basic function of thermography cameras is illustrated in Figure 5. Since changes in temperature measurements are one of the common indications of gas discharge in the pipelines surrounding as gas leaks usually cause abnormal temperature distribution, therefore, using IRT for pipeline monitoring become widely accepted due to its capability to measure temperature changes in real-time and in a non-contact manner [76,77]. IRT as a contactless and non-invasive condition monitoring tool is also applicable for various condition monitoring applications such as heat transfer [78], tensile failure [79], concrete and masonry bridges [80]. ...
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Pipelines are widely used for the transportation of hydrocarbon fluids over millions of miles all over the world. The structures of the pipelines are designed to withstand several environmental loading conditions to ensure safe and reliable distribution from point of production to the shore or distribution depot. However, leaks in pipeline networks are one of the major causes of innumerable losses in pipeline operators and nature. Incidents of pipeline failure can result in serious ecological disasters, human casualties and financial loss. In order to avoid such menace and maintain safe and reliable pipeline infrastructure, substantial research efforts have been devoted to implementing pipeline leak detection and localisation using different approaches. This paper discusses pipeline leakage detection technologies and summarises the state-of-the-art achievements. Different leakage detection and localisation in pipeline systems are reviewed and their strengths and weaknesses are highlighted. Comparative performance analysis is performed to provide a guide in determining which leak detection method is appropriate for particular operating settings. In addition, research gaps and open issues for development of reliable pipeline leakage detection systems are discussed.
... The first natural frequency of the bridge as calculated from displacements obtained with vision-based technologies was in a good match to the frequency calculated from GNSS (Yu et al., 2014). A comparative study between high resolution and low-cost infrared vision systems has shown that equally good results can be obtained when considering appropriate analysis algorithms suggesting that with high resolution output even better results could be obtained (Shakmak and Al-Habaibeh, 2015). The studies of applications of smartphone technologies in long-term monitoring projects are not yet reported. ...
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... As for infrared thermography, the method relies on the measurement of IR radiation across spatial surfaces and energy transfer theory to identify thermal anomalies for different application [33]. Due to the fact that water leakage causes temperature differences in the vicinity of the leak, IR camera can detect leaks by capturing the thermal profile of the surface above the pipeline [34]. Bach and Kodikara [35] provided an in-depth explanation of how water leakage can be detected via the temperature differences of the water leakage and the surrounding soil. ...
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Infrared thermal cameras are often used to detect gas and liquid leaks. The use of infrared thermal cameras can detect and warn of leaks in time. With the increase in demand for food delivery, beverages often leak during delivery due to bumps in delivery and damaged packaging. One way to solve this problem is to use infrared thermal cameras to detect leaks in beverages. In this study, an infrared thermal camera was used to monitor the leakage of hot and cold beverages in an insulated food delivery box. It was found that even the viewing angle of the infrared thermal camera was blocked by the top of the paper cup, the hot water leakage could be found within 120 s after the leakage began. Cold water leakage could be found within 60 s. However, the water leakage could not be detected by the data of the thermocouple. Infrared thermal cameras have broad application prospects in packaging liquid leakage monitoring.
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A type of single-conversion self-injection-locked (SCSIL) radar for sensing underground pipeline leakage through moist soil is proposed. In the implemented prototype, a 5.8 GHz output signal from a self-injection-locked (SIL) oscillator (SILO) is down-converted to a 0.433 GHz transmit signal, and the echo signal is up-converted to the injection signal for the SILO. With experiments, the SCSIL radar, the conventional 5.8 GHz SIL radar, and conventional 0.433 GHz SIL radar were compared under the same conditions, which included a 25-cm-thick soil barrier. The system sensitivity and penetration could both be improved by increasing the SILO’s locking range and decreasing the wireless propagation loss. To understand the behavior of the negative pressure wave caused by pipeline leakage, simulations were conducted using MATLAB, and the detection principles were evaluated. In noncontact underground pipeline leakage detection, the standard deviation of demodulated signals can be used to estimate a leak’s location. Leakage detection and localization were successfully achieved by making measurements at different measurement points; furthermore, variables such as the leak size and diameter of the pipeline were investigated.
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Essentially, water is an extremely vital resource for human beings. However, each year, a significant amount of water is lost because of leakages in multiple water distribution systems. From this perspective, much ink has been spilled upon the issue of water leakage detection and location. Indeed, since the emergence of data and interest in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, leak detection and location solutions have been optimized. This survey aims to present a comprehensive review of leak detection and location techniques in water distribution networks (WDNs). The different categories of leak detection and location solutions are set forward, in particular the intelligent ones. A comparative study between AI algorithms is performed using scenarios from the LeakDB data set. To our knowledge, this is the first work that uses a common benchmark data set to offer a comparative experimental study of the most used algorithms in leak detection. The selective choices of scenarios and experiments grant a deep understanding of the leak detection works, as well as a support for future research to develop artificial intelligence methods in this area.
Chapter
This paper presents a novel approach based on deep neural networks for autonomous navigation of a quad-copter UAV in a sparsely populated environment. Images from the video camera mounted on the UAV are split, emulating a compounded eye, and processed by deep neural networks that calculate the probability that each image contains a wind turbine object. Then, these probabilities are used as inputs to a vision servoing system that controls the drone’s navigation movements. Our experiments show that our approach produces relatively stable movements in the UAV, allowing it to find and navigate autonomously towards a wind turbine.KeywordsQuad-copter UAVControlVisual ServoingCompounded eyeArtificial intelligenceVisionMonocular camera
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Water leakage detection and localization in distribution networks pipelines is a challenge for utility companies. For this purpose, thermal Infrared Radiation (IR) techniques have been widely applied in the literature. However, the classical analysis of IR images has not been robust in detecting and locating leakage, due to presence of thermal anomalies such as shadows. In this study, to improve the detection and location accuracy, a digital image processing tool based on multitemporal IR is proposed. In multitemporal IR analysis, the variation of soil’s temperature due to field temperature can be obtained; and hence; estimating variations due to water leakage would be more accurate. An experimental setup was built to evaluate the proposed multitemporal IR water leak detection method. In order to consider the temporal temperature variation due to water leakage and mitigate the field temperature effects, a luminance transformation of the IR images was introduced. To determine the temporal temperature variation of the soil’s surface due to the leakage, several metrics have been considered such as the difference, the ratio, the log-ratio and the coefficient variation (CV) images. Based on the experimental results, the log-ratio and the CV images were the most robust metrics. Then, based on log-ratio or the CV image, a temporal variation image (TVI) that traduces the temporal IR luminance variation was introduced. The analysis of the TVI image showed that the CV image is less noisy than the log-ratio image, and can more accurately locate the leakage. Finally, based on TVI histogram, a threshold was defined to classify the TVI image into leakage/non-leakage areas. Results showed that the proposed method is capable of accurately detecting and locating water leakage, which is an improvement to the false detections of spatial thermal IR analysis.
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This paper offers a selective literature review of transient-based leak detection methods with the goal of offering a summary of current and past work, describing the state-of-the-art in the area, providing a degree of historic perspective and categorizing the major themes in this line of research. While not exhaustive, numerous publications are cited in an attempt to provide a reasonable cross-section of research activity and of the various methodologies. Unfortunately, field work and verification of these techniques, while not entirely absent, are shown to be still generally lacking.
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This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of inspection techniques and technologies towards condition assessment of water distribution and transmission mains. Pipe condition assessment is the determination of its current condition, including structural health, impact on water quality, and hydraulic capacity. The collection and analysis of relevant data and information is the first and a paramount step to detect and monitor critical indicators to prevent or mitigate catastrophic failures. The technologies include conventional non-destructive inspection and advanced sensor techniques for condition monitoring. This paper focuses on the inspection techniques and technologies for structural deterioration of water pipes. Technologies like smart pipe, augmented reality, and intelligent robots are also briefly discussed and summarized.
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The pipeline network of coalmine has the characteristics of widespread distribution and complex structure. It is difficult to detect abnormalities in time by manual when the faults occurred, which often lead to reduction in production. In this paper, a monitoring system is developed to monitor the operating conditions of the pipeline network in real-time. The system has abilities to dynamic monitoring, real-time display, and failure alarm and leakage location. Therefore, the faults detection and maintenance can be implemented timely to ensure the safety of coalmine production due to the real-time condition monitoring of the pipeline network. Moreover, the resources allocation, production efficiency and management level can also be improved obviously. In addition, this real-time monitoring system has shown significant performance in applying it in Dongtan Coal Mine, Yanzhou Coal Mining Co., Ltd and Wennan Coal Mine, Shandong Energy Xinwen Mining Group Co., Ltd, China.
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Leaks are present to some extent in all water-distribution systems. This paper proposes a leakage localisation method based on the pressure measurements and pressure sensitivity analysis of nodes in a network. The sensitivity analysis using analytical tools is not a trivial job in a real network because of the huge non-explicit non-linear systems of equations that describe its dynamics. Simulations of the network in the presence and the absence of leakage may provide an approximation of this sensitivity. This matrix is binarised using a threshold independent of the node. The binary matrix is assumed as a signature matrix for leakages. However, there is a trade-off between the resolution of the leakage isolation procedure and the number of available pressure sensors. In order to maximise the isolability with a reasonable number of sensors, an optimal sensor placement methodology, based on genetic algorithms, is also proposed. These methodologies have been applied to the Barcelona Network using PICCOLO simulator. The sensor placement and the leakage detection and localisation methodologies are applied to several district management areas (DMA) in simulation and in reality.
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This paper summarizes the methods and results of economic analyses performed for the agency responsible for water supply development and operation in Libya in support of decisions regarding further investments in water supply systems in their country. This study identified least-cost combinations of investments in Libya's Great Man-made River Project (GMRP) together with desalination that would meet specified water demand targets at various demand sites in the country. The GMRP is one of the largest civil works projects in the world, involving the pumping of ancient ground water from the Sahara Desert and transporting it hundreds of kilometers to the coast of Libya where demands for water exist. The paper outlines the optimization models used in these analyses and presents some interesting outcomes that warrant additional studies focusing on capacity expansion over time. Given the investments already made in the GMRP, only under most optimistic cost scenarios does desalination appear to be an economically efficient expansion alternative and then only for a limited range of water demands.
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This paper describes the implementation of a process monitoring system using a low-cost autonomous infrared imager combined with a novelty detection algorithm. The infrared imager is used to monitor the health of several manufacturing processes namely: drilling, grinding, welding and soldering. The main aim is to evaluate the use of low-cost infrared sensor technology combined with novelty detection to distinguish between normal and faulty conditions of manufacturing processes. The ultimate aim is to improve the reliability of the manufacturing operations so as to ensure high part quality and reduce inspection costs. The paper describes several case studies, which have shown that the new low-cost technology could provide an inexpensive and autonomous methodology for monitoring manufacturing processes. Novelty detection is used to compare normal and faulty conditions in order to provide an automated system for fault detection.
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Leaks in pipelines cause unnecessary waste of scarce resources and often endanger the environment. The Fraunhofer-Institut für Bauphysik (IBP), therefore, together with Technische Werke der Stadt Stuttgart (TWS), have developed and tested an effective acoustical technique of leak detection by correlation analysis (LOKAL). In the meantime several mobile measurement units for systematic checks of water supply systems have been established, and a compact electronic device has been developed and recently put on the market by Ingenieurgesellschaft für angewandte Sensortechnik (FAST). Ten years of experience with systematic surveys of water supply networks have shown that the specific losses can be reduced, on average, from approximately 1000 to less than 500 m3/km per year. The new technique thus opens new possibilities of conserving precious water resources.
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It is important to check for leakage points of fluids on a surface to maintain and manage various structures satisfactorily. In particular, it is necessary that the leaking walls of a bank, dam, tunnel, pipeline and so on are diagnosed appropriately using some remote sensing technique and that they should be repaired immediately. Recently, infrared thermography for measuring temperature has become attractive in a wide variety of engineering applications. Infrared thermography in near ambient conditions is introduced to check the leakage point and its applicability is estimated by visualizing the temperature field generated around the point. The generated temperature around the leakage point is not usually consistent with the surrounding temperature. When using infrared thermography, we can detect the leakage point at the location where a marked temperature difference occurs.
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Shallow karst water resources and caves may influence land surface temperatures due to cold transfer property of rocks and evaporation from buried karst. The objective of this research was to develop a method for recognition of karst areas based on evaluating the surface characteristics that manifest itself by low land surface temperature in the satellite images. Investigation of thermal ETM+ image of the study region in Iran showed that parts of carbonate rocks that bear karst water are relatively cooler compared to areas with similar terrain conditions. Relational modeling provided useful information on spatial distribution of areas that have the potential to hold karst water resources and/or caves. Further inspection of ASTER images, along with geotechnical, geophysical and geological field surveys verified the approach. Significant correlation was found between electrical resistivity and thermal band values. The method may be used as a primary exploratory tool for shallow karst water explorations in similar areas.
WATER LEAK DETECTION AND REPAIR PROGRAM
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