Preliminary Acoustic Study of 3D Localization of Buried Polyethylene Pipe

Abstract

Acoustic waves are commonly used to locate buried polyethylene pipes. In this preliminary study we are particularly interested in pipes depth. To obtain depth information we are moving towards a multi-sensor solution. Several estimators are implemented and tested on real data. A depth estimator according to the relative delays between sensors is proposed. We compare two relative delays estimators : the method using the cross-correlation and the one using the coherence function. We will verify on real measurements that the second method is much more efficient than the first one. Before discussing the results we will present another approach which consists in adapting the MUSIC (MUltiple SIgnals Classification) algorithm to our problem.

Three-Dimensional Localization of Buried Polyethylene Pipes Using Acoustic Method

“…Moreover, it is difficult to differentiate a water pipe from a gas pipe or a buried electrical cable. (ii) Acoustic methods are applicable in the case of non-conductive pipes [ 1 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. According to [ 1 ], we can refer to several types of acoustic methods: seismic wave methods [ 13 ], point vibration measurements [ 14 ] and pipe excitation methods [ 15 ].…”

“…The objective of this study is to implement a multi-sensor method, based on the differences in travel times between sensors, to estimate the depth in addition to the passage of the pipe [ 10 , 11 ].…”