Software Program Analyzes Sewer Videos

A sewer may not be the most likely star for a movie, but Saskatchewan municipalities have been collecting videos of the infrastructure for the past forty years. Using a camera mounted on a robot, the inside of a sewer is filmed using closed circuit television (CCTV). CCTV operators view the film to determine whether there any structural defects in the sewer, such as cracks, displaced joints, surface corrosion, and tree root penetration.

“Most municipalities around the world, including the City of Regina, possess thousands of hours of archived CCTV video footage and inspection reports, both of which could provide historical information about the condition of the sewer. The information can help to objectively predict the state of the sewer in the future,” explains Univeristy of Regina researcher Nima Sarshar.

Sarshar has recently been involved in a project to improve the analysis of sewer conditions. Using footage from the City of Regina, and through close collaboration with Mahmoud Halfawy from the National Research Council (NCR), Sarshar has developed a computer software prototype to view and analyze the CCTV videos.

Communities of Tomorrow (CT) has partnered with the University of Regina, the NRC, and the City of Regina, to carry out the project. CT provided funding for the seed project and is currently working with Sarshar to provide funding for the next phase of the research

Implemented as a web-based service for maximum accessibility, the software program will create a consistent way to rank a sewer’s condition. The ranking will help operators understand more accurately whether a sewer needs repair and, if so, what type of repair is needed. The benefit of the program is that the sewer can be analyzed in a consistent matter and historical data of the infrastructure can be collected.

While closed circuit television technology has been used to inspect sewers for forty years, all that film has not been properly analyzed. Analysis reports have often been recorded using different standards, some results have been lost, and other results cannot be referenced to a particular video. Currently, decisions about a sewer’s maintenance and operations are based on educated guesses.

“This research project aimed at developing a novel approach that could enable municipalities to leverage the value of their archived CCTV video footage to extract much-needed historical condition information of their sewer inventory,” explains Sarshar. “The software uses advance video analysis and data management techniques to enable efficient and close-to-automatic extraction of historical condition data from archived video footage in a cost-effective manner.”

Ultimately, more timely and accurate repair information means sewer systems can be maintained at a lower cost and with fewer significant breakdowns in the system.