Toilet Flow Data Packet Analysis for Leak Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems fail to effectively analyze and minimize water waste at a macro level in large facilities, particularly in hotel settings, where leaks from bathroom appliances like toilets often go undetected, leading to continuous water discharge.
Innovation Solution
A platform utilizing fluid flow sensors installed in toilets to collect and analyze flow data packets, which include sequences of flow rate values, enabling the detection of leaks, abnormal behaviors, and water usage patterns, and generating alerts for excessive water usage or anomalies, allowing for macro-level analysis and nodal analytics across entire buildings.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If fluid flow sensors are installed in toilets to collect flow data, then water waste detection capability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments water waste detection into individual toilet-level monitoring units, each equipped with its own flow sensor and processing capability. Each sensor device independently collects flow data packets and generates alerts, allowing distributed detection without requiring complex centralized infrastructure. This segmentation improves detection reliability at each node while avoiding the complexity of a fully centralized system.
Solution Approach 2:
Each toilet-mounted sensor device performs self-service by autonomously collecting flow data, analyzing flow patterns locally, and generating alerts without requiring constant external system intervention. The device processes flow data packets independently and can operate autonomously, reducing the complexity burden on the overall system while maintaining high detection capability.
2Productivity
If macro-level analysis is implemented across multiple toilets, then water management effectiveness is improved, but data processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The data processing system is segmented into hierarchical levels: individual toilet sensors perform local analysis of flow data packets, building-level systems aggregate data from multiple toilets for nodal analytics, and facility-level systems provide macro-level water management. This segmentation allows macro-level analysis to improve water management effectiveness while distributing processing complexity across multiple independent levels rather than concentrating it all in one complex system.
Solution Approach 2:
The system merges data from multiple toilet-level flow data packets into aggregated building-level analytics, combining individual detection capabilities into collective water management insights. By merging data while maintaining independent processing at each level, the system achieves improved water management effectiveness without proportionally increasing overall processing complexity.
3Speed
If real-time flow data collection is implemented, then leak detection speed is improved, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The flow sensors implement periodic action by collecting flow data at specific intervals during flush events rather than continuously monitoring. The system activates data collection during detected flush cycles and uses periodic sampling during these events, achieving fast leak detection speed during active water flow while minimizing energy consumption during idle periods when no water is flowing.
Data Source
AI summary
A computing system having a memory and a processor configured to process flow data packets (FDPs) collected from a set of sensor devices, each installed in a toilet that collects a flow data packet (FDP) in response to a detected event, wherein each FDP includes a sequence of flow rate values collected over the course of the detected event. The processor is configured to: issue a first type of alert in response to a number of flow rate values in a current FDP being above a threshold; issue a second type of alert in response to a detected abnormal behavior of the current FDP relative to previously collected FDPs for an associated toilet; and issue a third type of alert based on a water usage for the toilet, wherein the water usage is based on calculated flow rate for a toilet determined from at least one FDP.