An open-source software developed by Sandia National Laboratories in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency tells utility operators within minutes whether something is wrong with their water, giving them time to warn and protect the public. And it’s improving water quality by giving utility managers more comprehensive real-time data about changes in their water.
CANARY Event Detection Software is an open-source software developed in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The software is being used in Cincinnati and Singapore, and Philadelphia is testing the software system. A number of other U.S. utilities also are evaluating CANARY for future use.
CANARY researchers used specially designed numerical algorithms to analyze data coming from multiple sensors and differentiate between natural variability and unusual patterns that indicate a problem. For example, the Multivariate-Nearest Neighbor algorithm groups data into clusters based on time and distance. When new data is received, CANARY decides whether it’s close enough to a known cluster to be considered normal or whether it’s far enough away to be deemed anomalous.
The computer program uses a 1.5- to two-day window of past data to detect abnormal events by comparing predicted water characteristics with current observations. But a single outlier won’t trigger the alarm, which helps to avoid costly and inefficient false alarms.
