Communications of the ACM
DC Water Taps AI for Sewer Line Assessments
A new algorithm helps Washington, D.C., sewer pipe technicians obtain a more-accurate picture of what is happening in the network of pipes running beneath their city.
Credit: Sved Oliver/Shutterstock.com
The Washington, D.C., Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) and IT firm Wipro have developed an algorithm that helps sewer pipe technicians obtain a more-accurate picture of what is happening in the network of pipes running beneath the city.
The Pipe Sleuth software analyzes video taken by autonomous robots, and identifies anomalies based on industry standards and best practices.
The technicians program a path for the robots, which resemble a hot dog on wheels with 360-degree cameras on the front.
The videos captured by the robots are uploaded to a DC Water server and processed through Pipe Sleuth, which reviews the footage, rates the pipes according to industry standards, and produces a report showing imagery of defects.
The algorithm can identify nearly 50 different defects with up to 95% accuracy for vitrified clay pipes; it has a slightly lower accuracy rate for concrete pipes.
From Government Computer News
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2020 SmithBucklin, Washington, DC, USA
No entries found