Performance analysis of wavelet transforms for leakage detection in long range pipeline networks

Leakage in distribution pipeline networks is a significant problem, which not only cause immense amount of water lost but serious environmental and health hazards. For this reason, accurate detection and localization of leakages has become one of the most focused areas of research. A robust, reliable and real time parametric view of whole pipeline network is needed to achieve operational efficiency. Negative pressure wave (NPW) technique is one of the effective tools to identify abrupt leakages in pipelines. This paper presents wireless sensor network (WSN) based leakage detection and localization algorithm using pressure measurements and application of wavelet transform to the fault diagnosis in fluid (water/oil) distribution systems. The adoption of the developed system leads to precise leakage detection but also reduce the detection time. The proposed system is validated through experimental campaign that consisted different testing scenarios. The leak detection methodology is described in detail. A comparison of proposed methodology with traditional method has been carried out. The technique works with considerably high efficiency in most deployment scenarios for long pipeline networks.