Visualizing Water Flow and Quality in Municipal Water Networks

Most municipal water supply pipe networks require a manual operation of various control units in case of scheduled maintenance or an emergency. Crews operating gate valves to isolate sections of the network greatly benefit from updated information on the flow and quality of the water in these sections.

This research topic includes a field test of handheld or wearable devices to aid technicians in the field to visualize water flow and water quality data received from the control center. The user’s device also could be connected to the control room, or substations, where there are multiple water pipes and sensor stations to view. The scope of the research could include the visualization of interfaces for gate valves and other equipment in the field.

Stakeholders

This research will be valuable to the operators of municipal or regional water systems, waste management systems and the IT managers, field work force, and partners performing maintenance and repairs of utilities infrastructure.

Possible Methodologies

To model and visualize the behavior of liquid inside the pipeline, computational fluid dynamic simulations will be employed. Using areas that have reliable, manually measured flow parameters, the AR-enabled prototype system will be tested in the field. Various data extraction methodologies are used to compare the AR-assisted platforms with ground truth.

Research Program

Leakage and issues with obstructed pipes are not unique to utilities. The research techniques developed for this topic can be adapted for use in other industries where resources are sent using linear assets and infrastructure. The research platform could be commercialized into products or services to increase safety, reduce waste and optimize operations of infrastructure.

Miscellaneous Notes

None

Keywords

Data visualization, decision support, utility asset management, digital water services,, water supply, water treatment, well stimulation, well testing

Research Agenda Categories

Industries, Technology, Use Cases

Expected Impact Timeframe

Medium

Related Publications

Using the words in this topic description and Natural Language Processing analysis of publications in the AREA FindAR database, the references below have the highest number of matches with this topic:

• Padilha, V. L., de Oliveira, F. H., Proverbs, D., & Fuchter, S. K. (2019). Innovative Applications of VR: Flash-flood control and monitoring. 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Measurement and Control in Robotics (ISMCR).
• Li, J., & Nguyen, C. (2019). Realtime Water-Hazard Detection and Visualisation for Autonomous Navigation and Advanced Driving Assistance. 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct).
• Castellanos, M. J., & Navarro-Newball, A. A. (2019). Prototyping an Augmented Reality Maintenance and Repairing System for a Deep Well Vertical Turbine Pump. 2019 International Conference on Electronics, Communications and Computers (CONIELECOMP).
• Hossain, S. A., Islam, R., Rahman, S., & Nayeem, S. (2020). A Layered Framework for Virtual Guidance to Network Maintenance Based on Augmented Reality. IT Convergence and Security, 111-121.
• Matsuura, Y., & Koizumi, N. (2018). Fairlift. ACM SIGGRAPH 2018 Emerging Technologies.

More publications can be explored using the AREA FindAR research tool.

Author

Peter Orban, Christine Perey

Last Published (yyyy-mm-dd)

2021-08-31

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