Permanent (or fixed) network monitoring means deploying sensors (loggers) permanently everywhere in your water distribution network that continuously collect information about the pipe network and automatically send leak alarms to your control center for actioning. The systems can be standalone with its own radio transmission network (see ZONESCAN ALPHA or HISCAN below) or integrated in exisiting transmission infrastructure such as some major AMI networks (see ZONESCAN AMI below).
The following criteria are important for any permanent network monitoring system to be effective:
- It has to be able to send the data from the sensors in the field directly to the control center, ie. without the need for a drive-by data collection or the data download in the office.
- The system has to transmit enough data to the control room to eliminate non-leak noises (spectral analysis) and to pinpoint the exact location of the leak (correlation technique). Simple noise logging is ineffective.
- The battery life of the sensors has to be long enough (at least 5 years) in order to avoid frequent manpower-intensive and expensive battery changes and system redeployment exercises.
ZONESCAN ALPHA, based on GUTERMANN's ZONESCAN 820 correlating radio loggers, is the only truly fully automatic correlating distribution network monitoring system that allows you to correlate, exclude false positives, pinpoint leaks to within 1 metre, retrieve historical data, listen to leak sound remotely, all from the comfort of your office. No more undetected leaks. No more uncontrolled leak run-times. No more "dry holes" due to non-leak noise sources in the pipes.
ZONESCAN NB-IoT is the world’s first water leak detecting noise logger based on Narrowband Internet of Things (“NB-IoT”), the new LTE-based cellular communication standard optimised for machine-to-machine data communication in smart cities. It permanently monitors water distribution mains for new leaks and provides a Correlation Indicator for advanced filtering and leak identification in the Gutermann Cloud.
GUTERMANN’s ZONESCAN AMI correlating loggers can be wire-connected to AMI systems which have the capacity to automate the collection, retrieval, and analysis of acoustic data recorded by the ZONESCAN sensors. Thanks to a two-way communication within the AMI network, the sound data is recorded in a time-synchronised manner and transmitted back to the GUTERMANN servers for further analysis and display on a Google Maps interface (GUTERMANN CLOUD).
The permanent monitoring of trunk mains and transmission mains is becoming an increasing focus of utilities. But the technological challenge is bigger than for distribution mains. HISCAN is a permanently installed leak monitoring system for trunk mains that is both very sensitive (using correlating hydrophone sensors) and at the same time able to work independently for at least 5 years, using solar power for its data gateways. The data is sent to the GUTERMANN CLOUD allowing utilities to pinpoint leaks and investigate them remotely.
