Optimal placement of metering devices for multiple purposes

Abstract

Monitoring devices installed in a huge system like water distribution networks imply a high cost. This cost includes installation and maintenance. Thus, the placement of these devices must be optimal. The optimal sensor placement is an issue that comes up in many innovation projects involving water networks. The use of models is crucial in this process, even if the final application does not use them. Nevertheless, the optimality of the sensor placement may highly depend on the final use of these sensors. In general, a better sensor placement may be based in a more specific use of the information gathered by the sensors. This work studies the dependence of sensors placement on the functional orientation of the cost function. Two main applications for leak localisation and demand calibration are considered. These two applications are related since leaks and demands have a similar but not identical behaviour. In order to establish how sensors may be used for multiple purposes whilst keeping an optimal location, different optimisation strategies are tested here. The sensor distribution then becomes a multiobjective optimisation problem.