Sandia's CANARY Software Protects Water Utilities From Terrorist Attacks and Contaminants, Boosts Quality
Sandia National Laboratories (07/25/11) Heather Clark
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have developed the CANARY Event Detection Software, an open source program that monitors public water systems to protect them from terrorist attacks or natural contaminants. The CANARY software tells utility operators whether something is wrong with their water system within minutes. CANARY can be customized for individual utility systems with their own sensors and software, according to Sandia's Sean McKenna. The researchers used algorithms to analyze data coming from multiple sensors and differentiate between natural variability and unusual patterns that indicate a problem. When new data is received, CANARY determines whether it is close enough to a known cluster to be considered normal or whether it is far enough away to be deemed anomalous. An unintended benefit of the software is that when utility operators better understood the data being sent by their sensors, they could make changes to the management of the water systems to improve its overall quality.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Blog: Sandia's CANARY Software Protects Water Utilities From Terrorist Attacks and Contaminants, Boosts Quality
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