The goals of this project are to develop generic wireless sensor network capabilities to enable real time monitoring of a water distribution network. The project will be directed towards three main applications:

• Demonstrate the application and control of a low cost wireless sensor network for high data rate, on-line monitoring of hydraulic parameters within a large urban water distribution system. Real time pressure and flow measurements will be assimilated into hydraulic models and will be used to improve state estimation for the network.
• Integrated monitoring of hydraulic and water quality parameters. This task will comprise a detailed evaluation of the long term performance and robustness of non-specific water quality sensors (i.e., for measurands such as pH, chlorine residual, turbidity, conductivity and dissolved oxygen), the use/development of multi-parameter sonde technologies (combined measurements in a single chip), and the application of cross-correlation techniques to interpret water quality signatures locally within the network (i.e., through local signal processing at the node level).
• Development of systems to enable remote detection of leaks and prediction of pipe burst events. The detection of water leakage represents a critical problem in water conservation worldwide. Many older distribution networks have water losses that exceed 30% of supply. Although much smaller losses occur in Singapore (less than 5%), the development of remote leak detection capabilities can have enormous impacts on long term maintenance costs and reduce risks associated with pipe burst events. The proposed research will use high frequency pressure measurements (sampling up to 1kHz) of hydraulic transient events with a dynamic state estimation method to detect and quantify leaks, together with acoustic monitoring for accurately locating the leaks. This two tier approach will make full use of the technology developed in the first two phases of this project and will be evaluated using a controlled leak simulation.