Sensor placement for classifier-based leak localization in water distribution networks using hybrid feature selection

•A sensor placement for leak localization using classifiers in water networks is proposed.•The method is based on a hybrid feature selection approach.•This hybrid method combines the use of filters and genetic algorithms.•The obtained sensor placement optimizes the leak localization using classifiers.•The method is successfully applied to two water distribution networks.

This paper presents a sensor placement approach for classifier-based leak localization in water distribution networks. The proposed method is based on a hybrid feature selection algorithm that combines the use of a filter based on relevancy and redundancy with a wrapper based on genetic algorithms. This algorithm is applied to data generated by hydraulic simulation of the considered water distribution network and it determines the optimal location of a prespecified number of pressure sensors to be used by a leak localization method based on pressure models and classifiers proposed in previous works by the authors. The method is applied to a small-size simplified network (Hanoi) to better analyze its computational performance and to a medium-size network (Limassol) to demonstrate its applicability to larger real-size networks.