Serious Sensor Placement—Optimal Sensor Placement as a Serious Game

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel approach in water loss research combining two different topics: The optimal placement of pressure sensors to localize leaks in water distribution systems and Serious Gaming—games that are not only entertaining but that are also serving another purpose. The goal was to create a web interface, through which gamers could place sensors in a water distribution system model, in order to improve these sensor positions after they had been evaluated by a suitable algorithm. Two game objectives are to be pursued by the players: reaching a specified net coverage while not using more than a maximum number of sensors. For this purpose, an existing optimal sensor placement algorithm was extended and implemented, together with two hydraulic models taken from literature. The resulting Serious Game was then tested and rated in a case study. The results showed that human players are able to reach solutions that are similar regarding net coverage to those obtained by optimization, within in a short amount of time. Furthermore, it was shown that the implementation of the ideal sensor placement problem as a Serious Game motivates the players to get better and better results, while also providing them with an enjoyable gaming experience.

Two-Leak Isolation in Water Distribution Networks Based on k-NN and Linear Discriminant Classifiers

“…Since our proposal is mainly focused on the development of a leak isolation methodology, and good sensor placement is important to improve results, we use a previously established sensor placement methodology that has proven to provide reliable results. The sensor placement methodology used in this work is based on the net coverage calculation approach proposed in [34]. This method involves the use of residuals to assess the effectiveness of a candidate sensor placement in detecting leaks in all nodes.…”

Urban water-energy-food-climate nexus in integrated wastewater and reuse systems: Cyber-physical framework and innovations

“…wastewater infrastructures management [158], water governance and policy [159], as well as land management [150] and optimal sensor placement to localize leaks in water distribution systems [160].…”

Topological analysis of water distribution networks for optimal leak localization

“…In the last years, several strategies that tackle the optimal sensor placement problem in WDNs for the localization of leaks have been proposed. As a branch and bound searches [6], Genetic Algorithms [7], feature selection techniques [8], and game theory approaches [9].…”