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Next generation cyber-physical water distribution systems

Over the last decade, there has been a trend where water utility companies aim to make water distribution networks more intelligent in order to improve their quality of service, reduce water and energy waste, minimize maintenance costs etc., by incorporating Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). Current state of the art solutions use expensive power hungry deployments to monitor and transmit water network states periodically in order to detect anomalous behaviors, such as water leakage and bursts, and control water network assets. However, more than 97% of water network assets are found in remote areas, away from power and are often in geographically remote underpopulated areas; facts that make current approaches unsuitable for next generation more dynamic adaptive water networks. Battery-driven wireless sensor/actuator-based solutions are theoretically the perfect choice to support next generation cyber-physical water distribution systems. In this context, this thesis answers the question: "How can the communication be optimized to achieve sustainable Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) deployed in such harsh environments exploiting limited resources by combining Information, Control, and Communication theory (I2C)? " In order to efficiently utilize underground wireless sensor and actuator network infrastructures, the concepts of edge data processing, anomaly detection and localization, based on compression, stream analyses and graph theory, are introduced. Furthermore, energy optimization and network sustainability by exploiting data-rate and communication scheduling adaptation, based on Lyapunov optimization, is proposed; while the benefits of aperiodic communication are investigated by accommodating event-triggered control technique into smart water networks. In addition to simulations based on real data, WaterBox and BentoBox evaluation platforms were developed to evaluate the proposed algorithms and prove the benefits of event-triggered control and Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) communication technologies against the state-of-the-art solutions. Through theoretical analysis, simulations, and real testbed experiments, the proposed algorithms and systems are shown to outperform contemporary solutions by achieving communication and actuation optimization, data reliability enhancement, while ensuring the sustainable operation of smart water networks. The work presented in this thesis should be of interest to researchers in the emerging areas Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Internet of Things (IoT), and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for smart sustainable cites.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:726924
Date January 2016
CreatorsKartakis, Sokratis
ContributorsMcCann, Julie A.
PublisherImperial College London
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/52704

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