GPR image interpretation advancement for smarter technical management of water leakage in urban water infrastructures

Abstract

[EN] This paper combines such powerful non-destructive technique as ground penetrating radar (GPR) with intelligent data analysis in order to acquire new knowledge on mapping/monitoring/verification systems aimed at initially facilitating the evaluation of the health of the buried assets of water distribution system (WDS) infrastructures in urban areas. Preprocessing techniques based on a multi-agent approach coupled with a suitable analysis of the properties of the obtained groups of objects found, as well as a classification supported by machine learning techniques, are presented in this work. The work is based on GPR image studies conducted under controlled laboratory conditions using a commercial antenna. The buried objects correspond to pipes of various materials commonly used in WDSs. Furthermore, GPR images of various pipes either empty or full of water, as well as leaking water, are also included in the dataset of the study. The dataset is divided into two subsets that pursue: 1) the development of the methodology; i.e. capturing objects in GPR images to favour the feature extraction process, and 2) the evaluation of the feasibility of implementation of the proposed classification, as well as the response of the methodology to various environmental interactions recorded in the images. The results of this work are promising in the sense of promoting the inclusion of powerful tools such as GPR towards the provision of smarter tools that adequately support technical management in WDSs, and, eventually, that of other surrounding infrastructure(s).