1.
Shazam that water leak!
Sensors and faults
Contact: l.alfonso@unesco-ihe.org
Solomon Seyoum Ad Groenewegen
Leonardo Alfonso Joanne Craven
Schalk Jan van Andel Sandra de Vries
Nick van de Giesen

2.
Some facts on household’s
leaks (US)
• Average household leak loss: 35,000 L/year
– More than 11 million households worth (over the whole USA)
• 10% of homes have leaks that waste more than
124,000 L/year (340L/day)
• Fixing easily corrected household water leaks can
save homeowners about 10% on their water bills
Source: EPA website

3.
Objective
• To develop an automatic leak detection
method for households, including:
– a new, low cost, easy to install acoustic
sensor, capable to continuously record
pipe vibrations and send data to a server
– an acoustic detection software based on
audio fingerprinting, to analyse the data
sent to the server

4.
Lab setup Prototype
sensors
Acoustic sensor

5.
Audio fingerprinting software
Sensor
Internet
Household
Suspicious
signal? NoYes
Fingerprint
Database
Server
Possible leakage
Database
Report
possible
leackage
Fingerprinting
software
end
Example: Shazam App

6.
ALD software
• Feed mode
– The ALD software creates fingerprints of
each sound recording and build database
• Detection mode
– Once the database is complete, ALD is like
Shazam: listen to new recordings, check if
they exist in database and retrieve message

7.
Water
meter
To demand points
Sensor
Connection
Sensor
Internet
Household
Suspicious
signal? NoYes
Fingerprint
Database
Server
Possible leakage
Database
Report
possible
leackage
Fingerprinting
software
end

8.
Dr. Solomon Seyoum
testing sensor at a
household meter

9.
Silence
Shower
Shower+ Kitchen
Kitchen only

10.
Experiments
House 1 House 2
Number of 30 sec
files
3800+ files (every 5, 10 or 30
mins)
1700+ files (every 5 or 10
mins)
Appliances Toilet
Kitchen tap
Bath tap
Shower
Washing machine
Dishwasher
+
Toilet 2
Garden tap
N/A
Issues • Sensor regularly offline
• Loose cables, not detecting
• Solved: sensor always
online
• But: SD card fills fast

11.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 01 02 03 04
05 06
Number of analysed audio recordings
Day (above) and Month (below)
DETECTION - Found FEED - Found FEED - Not Found and Inserted
Feed vs detection House 1

12.
Feed vs detection House 2

13.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Recorded water use
Bathtub Dishwasher Shower
Shower ShowerTapKitchen ShowerToilet
TapDishwasher TapKitchen TapToilet
TapToiletTapKitchen Toilet WashingMachine

14.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Detection mode - 15 seconds analysis
Bathtub Dishwasher Shower
ShowerTapKitchen ShowerToilet TapDishwasher
TapKitchen TapToilet TapToiletTapKitchen
Toilet WashingMachine

15.
Conclusions
• Automatic leak detection method for
households has been developed
• Results show sensor can “learn” how a
pipe normally sounds and detect
anomalies (potential leaks)
– Further testing required for sensor location
and false alarms
• Not conclusive if sensor can distinguish
water uses

16.
Thank you for your attention
Any questions?

17.
Opportunities
• Market opportunities
– Categorisation of domestic water use
– Survelliance of water systems
• Aquaseca: 1-year old company doing
the same

18.
@WATERNOMICS_EU www.waternomics.eu18
waternomics.eu @waternomics_eu

19.
@WATERNOMICS_EU www.waternomics.eu19
This project has received funding from the European Union’s
Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological
development and demonstration under grant agreement no
619660.
waternomics.eu @waternomics_eu
This project is member of and