Real-time leak detection and isolation in plastic pipelines with equivalent control based observers

This paper focus on an approach based on sliding mode observers to estimate the position and pressure of a leak in a water plastic pipeline. Two observers are designed, the first one is based on First Order Sliding Mode (FOSM) and the second one is based on Super-Twisting algorithm. Convergence proofs are presented. The two derived observers are implemented in real-time with the purpose of evaluating the performance of such diagnosis systems in a pipeline prototype. These systems only use measures of flow and pressure coming from sensors placed at the ends of a pipeline. Satisfactory results are shown through some experiments.