Application of CNN Models to Detect and Classify Leakages in Water Pipelines Using Magnitude Spectra of Vibration Sound

Conventional schemes to detect leakage in water pipes require leakage exploration experts. However, to save time and cost, demand for sensor-based leakage detection and automated classification systems is increasing. Therefore, in this study, we propose a convolutional neural network (CNN) model to detect and classify water leakage using vibration data collected by leakage detection sensors installed in water pipes. Experiment results show that the proposed CNN model achieves an F1-score of 94.82% and Matthew’s correlation coefficient of 94.47%, whereas the corresponding values for a support vector machine model are 80.99% and 79.86%, respectively. This study demonstrates the superior performance of the CNN-based leakage detection scheme with vibration sensors. This can help one to save detection time and cost incurred by skilled engineers. In addition, it is possible to develop an intelligent leak detection system based on the proposed one.