Abstract
While low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technologies have been studied extensively for a broad spectrum of smart city applications, their potential for water distribution system monitoring in high temporal resolution has not been studied in detail. However, due to their low power demand, these technologies offer new possibilities for operating pressure-monitoring devices for near real-time leak detection in water distribution systems (WDS). By combining long-distance wireless communication with low power consumption, LPWAN technologies promise long periods of maintenance-free device operation without having to rely on an external power source. This is of particular importance for pressure-based leak detection where optimal sensor positions are often located in the periphery of WDS without a suitable power source. To assess the potential of these technologies for replacing widely-used wireless communication technologies for leak detection, GPRS is compared with the LPWAN standards Narrowband IoT, long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN) and Sigfox. Based on sampling and transmission rates commonly applied in leak detection, the ability of these three technologies to replace GPRS is analyzed based on a self-developed low-power pressure-monitoring device and a simplified, linear energy-consumption model. The results indicate that even though some of the analyzed LPWAN technologies may suffer from contractual and technical limitations, all of them offer viable alternatives, meeting the requirements of leak detection in WDS. In accordance with existing research on data transmission with these technologies, the findings of this work show that even while retaining a compact design, which entails a limited battery capacity, pressure-monitoring devices can exceed runtimes of 5 years, as required for installation at water meters in Austria. Thus, LPWAN technologies have the potential to advance the wide application of near real-time, pressure-based leak detection in WDS, while simultaneously reducing the cost of device operation significantly.
Highlights
The development of the Internet of Things (IoT), accelerating digitization and the wide availability of low-power and low-cost communication technologies led to a continuous trend towards so-called smart cities and smart infrastructures
Alongside several highly energy-efficient radio technologies [3], such capabilities are offered by standards designed for ultra-low-power machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, among which low-power wide area network (LPWAN) standards, like Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), Sigfox and long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN) are promising for smart infrastructure monitoring [4]
While the authors consider a broad spectrum of use cases, to our knowledge no publication considers the advantages and drawbacks of these technologies in the context of data requirements for leak detection algorithms in water distribution systems (WDS)
Summary
The development of the Internet of Things (IoT), accelerating digitization and the wide availability of low-power and low-cost communication technologies led to a continuous trend towards so-called smart cities and smart infrastructures. While the authors consider a broad spectrum of use cases, to our knowledge no publication considers the advantages and drawbacks of these technologies in the context of data requirements for leak detection algorithms in water distribution systems (WDS). Such detection algorithms usually rely on data from hydraulic sensors, collected via pressure-monitoring devices and flow meters [8] operated at suitable positions in WDS [9,10], for model generation, calibration and validation. Detection time and accuracy rely on these data streams
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