Power aware scheme for water pipeline monitoring based on Wireless Sensor Networks

Recently, using Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is increasing in many areas, whether scientific, logistic, military, health and water monitoring. Water is among the vital material transported by pipeline systems. Any leakage in the pipe can cause major financial losses and possible environmental damages. Therefore, it is necessary to have a real time leak detection system. WSNs can play an important role to effectively detect the leak and minimize the water loss. Sensor size, however, is a significant limitation in terms of energy autonomy. In fact, the battery is very small and in general, it is not replaceable or rechargeable. Therefore, many studies are currently focusing on the management of the energy consumed by sensor nodes. In this paper, we propose a new energy efficient scheme for leak detection in water pipeline based on WSNs. The main goal of our proposal is to solve the problem of losing water and ameliorate network lifetime by reducing energy needs. The proposed scheme is composed of three tasks: deployment of sensors, routing and replacement of failed nodes. Simulations results validate the choice of the best cluster based routing protocol which will be executed in the second task of the proposed scheme.