Acoustic communications in water pipes: an experimental approach

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental approach of establishing a digital communication between two points using water pipes as infrastructure and low-cost piezoelectric based sensors. A pipe network, that represents a common infrastructure used in water distribution, was installed in the laboratory to carry out different set of tests in order to evaluate the best range of frequencies and different digital communication modes. The tests were performed with two low-cost piezoelectric based sensors connected to a laptop computer. The results of the experimental tests determine that it is possible to establish a reliable communication in the sound range between 2 and 3 kHz. This is considered as the first step for developing of a new family of low-cost devices to remote control the water distribution network.