Optimal Sensor Placement for Leak Location in Water Distribution Networks Using Genetic Algorithms

This paper proposes a new sensor placement approach for leak location in water
distribution networks (WDNs). The sensor placement problem is formulated as an integer
optimization problem. The optimization criterion consists in minimizing the number of
non-isolable leaks according to the isolability criteria introduced. Because of the large
size and non-linear integer nature of the resulting optimization problem, genetic algorithms
(GAs) are used as the solution approach. The obtained results are compared with a
semi-exhaustive search method with higher computational effort, proving that GA allows
one to find near-optimal solutions with less computational load. Moreover, three ways of
increasing the robustness of the GA-based sensor placement method have been proposed
using a time horizon analysis, a distance-based scoring and considering different leaks sizes.
A great advantage of the proposed methodology is that it does not depend on the isolation
method chosen by the user, as long as it is based on leak sensitivity analysis. Experiments in
two networks allow us to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach.