A Cyber-Physical System for Continuous Monitoring of Water Distribution Systems

Water Distribution Systems (WDSs) are prone to events such as leaks, breaks, and chemical contamination. Continuous monitoring of WDSs for prompt response to such events is of paramount importance. WDS monitoring has been typically performed using static sensors that are strategically placed. These solutions are costly and imprecise [9] [18]. Recently mobile sensors for WDS monitoring has attracted research interest to overcome the shortcomings of static sensors [21] [14] [11]. However, most existing solutions are either unrealistic, or focus on on-demand methods (i.e., deploying sensors when presence of an event is suspected). In this paper, we propose a Cyber-Physical system (CPS) - CPWDS, for continuous monitoring of a WDS. Mobile sensors reside in the CPWDS and move with the flow of water in pipes; mobile sensors communicate with static beacons placed outside the pipes, and report sensed data; the flows in the pipes are controlled to prevent sensors from getting stuck and to ensure the sensors cover the main pipes of the WDS. We evaluate the proposed algorithms/protocols for the communication, computation and control of the CPWDS and demonstrate their performance through extensive simulations.