“The main impact of Pipebots is water utilities will move on to proactive pipe network management”
Non-revenue water (NRW) is water that is produced but is lost before it reaches the customer and is a persistent problem in worldwide municipal water systems. In England and Wales, approximately 3 billion litres of water are lost through leaks every day.
The importance of reducing non-revenue water has become increasingly clear as climate change is making water scarcity worse, and countries such as the UK are turning their attention to this issue. There are numerous inspection technologies that exist on the market, including sniffer dogs and thermal imaging drones; however, a team of researchers led by Professor Kirill V. Horoshenkov at the University of Sheffield are working on an innovative project with little robots called Pipebots that will not only increase the detection of leaks, but also transform the management of the United Kingdom’s pipe network system with minimal disruption to roads.
Kirill Horoshenkov, Professor of Acoustics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield, was trained as an acoustic and ultrasonic engineer and worked in acoustics all his professional life. He holds MEng and PhD degrees in acoustic engineering. Before joining the University of Sheffield, he spent 21 years working for the University of Bradford where he developed a strong interest in acoustic sensing for buried pipes. His current role at the University of Sheffield is to lead the Pipebots team to deliver this technology for the benefit of the UK’s water industry and other industrial partners globally. He also works on related projects, including developing fibre-optic sensing for sewer pipes and acoustic holography to map river flows using drones.
In order to detect the onset of wall damage or small leaks in a pipe it was necessary to bring a sensor close to its location
Around 3 billion litres of water are lost through leaks every day in England and Wales. The University of Sheffield’s ICAIR is testing subterranean robotic pipe patrollers. How did you come up with the idea?
It became clear to the team that in order to detect the onset of wall damage or small (hidden) leaks in a pipe it was necessary to bring a sensor close to its location, i.e. to deploy it on a robot that can move autonomously through the pipe. Ideally, such a robot should be equipped with a range of sensors, i.e. acoustic, ultrasonic and CCTV that should work collaboratively fusing several data streams together to detect defects and leaks that are currently undetectable with traditional sensors, like acoustic data loggers or hydraulic pressure monitors.
What benefits do the Pipebots present compared to other leak-detecting methods, for example, satellite imaging, specialised in-pipe cameras or thermal drone technology?
Pipebots work from in a pipe network so that the inside of pipes is well visible and they can navigate themselves and map the network
Pipebots go inside the pipe so that sensors can get much closer to the defect. These measurements are not subject to noise from the environment so they can help detect very small leaks that are currently undetectable. Thermal drone technology only detects large leaks from trunk mains mainly. In-pipe cameras do not always see a leak because it is difficult to spot behind a bad wall condition and the onset of a perforation that can actually result in a leak. Acoustic loggers attached to the outside of the pipe are not sensitive or accurate enough to pick up small leaks, characterise them and pinpoint their exact location to guide accurate excavation work.
Identifying small leaks and fixing them without road excavation and preventing new leaks means that the cost of network maintenance is low
Part of the problem in detecting leaks is that some of the pipes are not visible, and therefore difficult to determine where they are. How can AI-powered robots help in this regard?
Pipebots work from in a pipe network so that the inside of pipes is well visible to these robots. The robots can navigate themselves and map the network. The sensors the robots carry detect damage and leaks and superimpose them on the network map so that the network is perfectly visualised by the robots and their operators.
Water leaks not only have an impact on the environment but also cost economies $14 billion per year worldwide. How can the Pipebots help with this issue?
The main impact of Pipebots is that the water utilities can move on to truly proactive pipe network management. This means that the robots can identify problems at their onset and suggest to the operators the right parts of the pipe to maintain. It is much cheaper to maintain pipes before damage or leaks become obvious and visible from above ground. Proactive maintenance can be done with No Dig technologies delivered with special robots from inside the pipe. Also, identifying small leaks and fixing them without road excavation and preventing new leaks means that the cost of network maintenance is very low. This means that less water is pumped through the pipes with less energy used, less water treatment efforts, less road excavation and less traffic and service disruption.
What water companies is the ICAIR team working with to test these new devices?
Thames Water, Wessex Water, Welsh Water and Severn Trent.
Once the Pipebots are commercially patrolling the water network in the UK, do you plan to introduce this detecting system in other parts of the world?
Yes. We are collaborating with teams in the United States, Canada, Australia, Continental Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mauritius. There is a lot of interest from those parts of the world in Pipebots technology because the problems it is designed to solve are global.