An automated, standoff acoustic leak detection scheme has been designed, built, and tested. It merges the principles of glass breakage and smoke detection to alert for the presence of leaks emanating from pressurized plumbing. A simulated water leak flowing at 0.15 l/min has been reliably detected at a standoff distance of more than 10 m. The device is also effective at identifying the presence of leaks located behind surfaces such as walls, doors, floors, and ceilings. The anticipated application is as an autonomous, battery-powered, remote wireless node. All signal processing and analysis takes place on the edge with no need to stream audio data to the cloud. Sensor status is conveyed on-demand with only a few bytes of information, requiring minimal bandwidth. Power consumption is the range of 20--200 micro-Watts, depending on the amount of environmental noise and desired sensor latency. To attain optimum sensitivity and reliability, the hardware operates at acoustic frequencies well above the range of human conversations, making eavesdropping impossible. Development has been done with water escaping from pressurized plumbing, but the sensor concept can be used effectively to detect gas leaks.

翻译：本文设计、构建并测试了一种自动化的非接触式声学泄漏检测方案。该方案融合了玻璃破碎检测与烟雾探测的原理，用于预警加压管道系统中产生的泄漏。在超过10米的非接触距离下，系统已可靠检测到流速为0.15升/分钟的模拟水泄漏。该装置还能有效识别位于墙壁、门体、地板和天花板等遮蔽面后方的泄漏。预期应用场景为自主式、电池供电的远程无线节点。所有信号处理与分析均在边缘端完成，无需向云端传输音频数据。传感器状态按需以仅数字节的信息量传输，对带宽需求极低。功耗范围在20至200微瓦之间，具体取决于环境噪声水平与设定的传感器延迟。为实现最佳灵敏度与可靠性，硬件工作于远高于人声频率的声学频段，从而杜绝窃听可能。本研究以加压水管的水泄漏为开发对象，但该传感器原理同样适用于气体泄漏的有效检测。