Multi‐Sensor Fusion for Transient‐Based Pipeline Leak Localization in the Dempster‐Shafer Evidence Framework

Abstract

AbstractDetecting a small leak in a water‐supply pipe with a wave scattering power of the order of noise or smaller is a challenging problem because its signature in a measured signal is weak. Experimental data show that multiple sensors enhance the evidence about a leak in a transient test and, thus, increase the possibility of successful leak detection in noisy environments. Therefore, a leakage localization scheme is proposed, which fuses multi‐sensor measurements in the Dempster‐Shafer evidence framework. The signature of a leak in each measurement is extracted and translated into a piece of evidence regarding its presence and location. Then, the pieces of evidence from different sensors are fused using the Dempster's rule of combination to form a unified leak location estimation. The proposed method is model‐free and is thus insensitive to imprecise knowledge of pipe system. The gain of the multi‐sensor fusion mechanism on the leakage localization accuracy is demonstrated via both numerical and experimental data.