 |
|
|
AquaNet Project > AquaNet Project > At a glance
At a glanceCity Water Management Systems and Water Distribution Network Monitoring
Existing approaches for city-wide drinking water management are primarily based on remote monitoring of a limited number of remote storage tanks, usually at high altitude, as well as a few smaller distribution tanks inside the city and in proximity to the final consumers. Typical management is manual and heuristic and aims to keep the distribution tanks as empty as possible, given that water inside the distribution tanks is usually consumed quickly and cannot be re-distributed to other parts of the network (e.g. storage tanks). Additionally, the lack of a decentralized measuring system that could continuously monitor water flow results in slow detection of leakages (e.g. due to broken valves or pipes) or water thefts (e.g. due to illegal irrigation), which are left unnoticed for extended periods of time. Finally, the lack of an intelligent sensing network prohibits optimized operation of the water management company. For example, during summer the company aims to maximize reliability (and reduce shortages), while during the winter, the company aims to maximize revenues (and thus, the watering network should operate at higher water pressure, leading to increased consumption).
Monitoring Water Distribution Network using low-cost wireless sensor network
The project aims to develop a low-cost and large-scale pilot WSN for water management that will be able to augment the existing monitoring and management functionality of the Municipal Enterprise of Water and Sewage of Chania (DEYAX). Particular emphasis will be given on cognitive radio principles, not currently supported by commercial Zigbee-based WSNs and relevant standards. Such an approach is crucial for successful large-scale, city-wide deployment, given that the license-free Industrial Scientific Medical (ISM) frequency bands are usually crowded. The consortium will exploit its significant know-how on renewable energy sources, both solar and wind, in order to design autonomous micro-powering of the installed radio terminals and sensors. Furthermore, the project spearheads low-cost sensors appropriate for water level. It is remarked that existing level sensors are usually of high cost and imported. Moreover, the consortium will capitalize on its award-winning experience on in-network processing of acquired (sensed) data, including periodic or streamlined (aggregate) measurements. In-network processing offers intelligence in the system, while reducing the required communication bandwidth, since redundant information is not re-transmitted. Furthermore, the offered in-network intelligence will simplify the design of sensors, significantly reducing their cost, and will offer resistance to sensor outlier readings. DEYAX will offer the fertile experimentation ground, since a subset of their watering system, including storage/distribution tanks and pipes will be networked with the proposed system. Concrete quantification of the benefits will be performed in conjunction with other WSN-free parts of the watering infrastructure. It is remarked that DEYAX and members of the AquaNet consortium have already successfully collaborated in other applications. |
English
Ελληνικά