Mobile Direct Visualization of Pipes, Apexes, and Water Leaks in Water Distribution Networks

Perez Medina, Jorge Luis [UCL] Vanderdonckt, Jean [UCL] De Coster, Albéric [UCL] Lambot, Sébastien [UCL]

Technological innovations, such as Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) provide a non-destructive and non-invasive solution to support the processes of detection of water leaks in water distribution networks. Sensport is an initiative funded by the Walloon Region in Belgium. The purpose of the project was to use a Ground-Penetrating Radar in conjunction with intelligent and embedded systems to provide a feasible, low cost and non-invasive solution. We introduce the value in detecting water leaks on roads and underground pipes in cities. This contribution presents an agile development life cycle to obtain the human-computer interface in a mobile device e.g., tablet-like) to visualize water leaks in an area being studied. The visualization mechanisms that have been used contemplate the data processing as images and 2D/3D representations on mobile devices.