Adaptive noise cancellation based on EMD in water-supply pipeline leak detection

Abstract In water-supply pipeline leak detection and location, both the leak signals and blurred noises are closely related to the pipeline states and surroundings and most of the conventional noise-cancellation methods have to depend on the empirical parameters of either signals or noises. EMD (Empirical Mode Decomposition) is an adaptive signal decomposition method and is exclusive of base functions. A signal is decomposed into several IMFs (Intrinsic Mode Functions) in EMD, then the noise in a signal can be cancelled through removing uncorrelated IMFs. The existing EMD noise cancellation methods need to know the characteristics of either the wanted signal or the noise for rebuilding the noise-removed signal. However the characteristics of leak signals and noises are not fixed in various pipeline conditions, so the existing EMD noise cancellation methods can’t be directly applied in water-supply pipeline leak detection. This paper proposes an adaptive noise cancellation method based on EMD, in which the IMFs that don’t or less contain the components related to the leak can be removed through the cross-correlation between the IMFs and another signal collected at the either side of a suspect leak. In simulation analysis, the adaptive noise cancellation method can increase the SNRs (Signal to Noise Ratios) of leak signals as high as 16 dB. In processing practical pipeline vibro-acoustic signals, with the proposed method the peak of adaptive time delay estimate of leak signals, which determines the location of a leakage, becomes more distinguished, and thus the error of leakage location is improved.