Inline Mobile Sensors for Contaminant Early Warning Enhancement in Water Distribution Systems

Prompt detection of intentional or accidental contamination of the public water supply is vital to maintain public health in any centralized water distribution system. Being able to quickly detect a system contamination event may be the single most influential factor to reduce possible contamination fallout. Consequently, major research has explored how to best protect a water distribution system (WDS) through strategic placement of fixed water quality monitoring stations. Although fixed monitoring stations within a wireless sensor network (WSN) are robust with respect to hydraulic conditions, the stations are expensive to place, and may not provide the highest spatial and temporal resolution of contamination detection. This work sets to build the understanding of a mobile wireless sensor network (MWSN) where inline mobile sensors function within water in pipes to monitor water quality and to wirelessly transmit data to fixed transceivers in real time. Mobile sensor behavior was modeled alongside contamination simulations and the deployment of fixed and mobile sensors was together optimized to minimize the affected population prior contamination event detection constrained by a total system cost. Results show a MWSN to be highly sensitive to sensor battery life, transceiver network coverage, and total system cost. Future obstacles for implementation of a MWSN are highlighted and discussed to be address in future work.