Minimally Invasive Online Water Monitor

Abstract

Abstract-Sensor installation on water infrastructure is challenging due to requirements for service interruption, specialised personnel, regulations and reliability as well as the resultant high costs. Here, a minimally invasive installation method is introduced based on hot-tapping and immersion of a sensor probe. A modular architecture is developed that enables the use of interchangeable multi-sensor probes, non-specialist installation and servicing, low-power operation and configurable sensing and connectivity. A prototype implementation with a temperature, pressure, conductivity and flow multi-sensor probe is presented and tested on an evaluation rig. This paper demonstrates simple installation, reliable and accurate sensing capability as well as remote data acquisition. The demonstrated minimally invasive multi-sensor probes provide an opportunity for the deployment of water quality sensors that typically require immersion such as pH and spectroscopic composition analysis. This design allows dynamic deployment on existing water infrastructure with expandable sensing capability and minimal interruption, which can be key to addressing important sensing parameters such as optimal sensor network density and topology.

Miniature water flow energy harvester based on savonius-type microturbine: an experimental study

“…Significant obstruction of the flow can also be problematic as it generates additional pressure drop. In the work reported here we aimed to address the question of whether it is feasible to implement an alternative type of water flow harvester, one that can be inserted through a small hole in the side of a water pipe, allowing installation with minimal disruption by hot-tapping (installation without service interruption) [10], compatibility with various pipe sizes, and a low degree of obstruction to the flow. Figure 1 illustrates the concept.…”

“…The WFTEH presented here is intended to form the power supply for a minimally invasive water pipeline sensor probe such as the one presented in [10]. The idea behind such sensors is that they can be inserted through a hole in the pipeline wall that is sufficiently small so as to have negligible impact on the mechanical integrity of the pipe.…”

Passive Acoustic Transducer as a Fluid Flow Sensor

“…In the case of fluid-flow monitoring, the common sensor concepts, which include turbine counters for large systems, and heat dissipation probes and drag force sensors for smaller systems [1,2], typically require the immersion of an active electronic device into the flow. A method for reduced invasiveness by probe miniaturisation has been demonstrated in [3] offering a practical minimally invasive method for multisensor installation. Non-invasive methods for flow monitoring include the Siemens ultrasound time-of-flight sensor [4] and the Pulsar Measurement ultrasound doppler effect sensor [5].…”