CMU eyes smarter way to monitor pipelines
Share with others:
It would've been nice if municipal officials had advance warning that water mains on 25th Street in the South Side and Bower Hill Road in Mt. Lebanon were going to rupture on Wednesday.
It would've been nice if workers in Downtown office buildings didn't swelter or shiver because air conditioning was malfunctioning or improperly set.
Officials of IBM and Carnegie Mellon University today will announce a partnership aimed at making those and other visions a reality, through technology that uses sophisticated sensors on vital infrastructure, allowing managers to make better and more effective decisions.
The two are creating a Smarter Infrastructure Lab at Carnegie Mellon that will bring together academic, industry and government sectors for advanced research into better monitoring of pipelines and building systems through use of digital sensors.
"The end goal is to try to provide insight that managers can use and act on, and avoid spending on emergencies," said James H. Garrett Jr., chair of the university's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Better management of infrastructure will produce cost and environmental benefits, said Wayne Balta, IBM vice president of corporate environmental affairs and product safety.
"You have the ability to detect patterns and spot problems before they become problems, and if there are no problems, optimize costs," Mr. Balta said.
For example, sensors on a pipeline might detect variations in flow caused by a leak, or warn of impurities that have infiltrated the system, he said.
In a building, they could monitor heating, ventilation, air conditioning and electrical systems. Sensors might monitor traffic patterns in a building and adjust the movement of elevators accordingly.
There are "huge opportunities" to make buildings more energy efficient, Dr. Garrett said. Heating and cooling systems "are not operated very efficiently. Occupants are either too cold or too warm most of the time."
The new lab will explore ways to collect and analyze the enormous amounts of data that the systems would generate.
"All manner of civil infrastructure is ripe for instrumentation," Mr. Balta said.
IBM is not disclosing the amount of its financial commitment to the project but Mr. Balta said the corporation will provide computer hardware and software and expertise from personnel in its research division.
First Published July 29, 2010 12:00 am
