Automatic identification of district metered area fluid relations

Abstract

A computer implemented method for identifying a fluid relation between a district flow meter and one or more consumption meters in a fluid distribution network. In a first step the method comprises performing a fluid balance calculation between fluid flow measured by the district flow meters and fluid flow measured by the one or more consumption meters. In a second step the method comprises identifying the fluid relation between the district flow meter and the one or more consumption meters in response to the fluid balance calculation and in response to measurements of acoustic noise in the fluid distribution network performed by the one or more consumption meters. Finally, the method comprises forming a group of one or more consumption meters being identified to have a fluid relation with the district flow meter, i.e. belonging to the same District Metered Area (DMA). A reliable automatic DMA generation can thus be provided, since it is based on both a fluid balance calculation and based on acoustic noise fingerprints captured in acoustic noise measurements performed by the consumption meters. In a preferred embodiment, a fluid balance calculation is provided as a first way of initially clustering the consumption meters, and the acoustic noise measurements are then used to verify or change the initial cluster.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.