Never Lose Water.Leak detection that runs itself.
NELOW is an LLM-based agentic AI platform for water distribution networks. High-sensitivity acoustic and pressure sensors listen to the pipe around the clock, the AI agent analyses what they hear every day, pinpoints the leak, and drafts the response plan.
The problem
The world is leaking, quietly and expensively.
Non-revenue water stays invisible until the road caves in. Every year the world loses around USD 40 billion to pipe leakage — water that was already abstracted, treated and pumped.
Treated water lost to distribution leakage worldwide — enough for 880 million people, every day.
Share of water and heating mains already past 20 years of age, where failure rates climb sharply.
Of sinkhole incidents over the last five years traced back to pipe leaks undermining the ground.
Why the conventional approach stalls
Leak detection still runs on hearing, memory and spreadsheets.
Detection accuracy
Expert listening averages about 80%, and varies with the operator, the surface and the hour of the night.
Time to find a leak
Micro-leaks run for weeks before anyone hears them — often until a resident reports water at the surface.
Time to a response plan
Once the data is in, analysis and reporting still take more than a day before a crew can be dispatched.
It depends on people who are retiring
Running a long, complex network needs experienced leak-detection technicians, operators and data analysts at the same time — a workforce that is getting harder to replace.
It is not real time
Surveys are campaigns, not monitoring. Between campaigns the network goes unobserved, and the first signal is usually a resident’s complaint.
How it works
One stack, from the pipe wall to the response plan.
NELOW puts the expert’s judgement into the platform, so a non-specialised field team can find leaks with precision — and keep finding them every day rather than once a year.
High-sensitivity acoustic and pressure sensors sit on hydrants, valves and chambers, streaming leak sound and pressure continuously instead of only during a one-off survey.
- Sonic GL
- Sonic M2-L
- Sonic M2-P
- Remote Multi-sensor
Every recording is converted to a spectrogram, noise-cancelled against the surrounding environment, and classified by CNN and Auto-Encoder models. Correlating sound between adjacent sensors turns a verdict into a position.
- CNN classification
- Auto-Encoder anomaly
- Noise cancelling
- Sound signal correlation
The agent reads the day’s acoustic and pressure data together with the network’s leak history and knowledge map, issues the daily report, and drafts the response plan — including pump and valve actions.
- Daily report generation
- Response plan drafting
- Pump & valve control
- Natural-language queries
The hardware
Three sensors, one platform.
A survey device that moves with the crew, and two permanent loggers that stay on the network after the survey ends.
logger
Sonic GL
A portable acoustic logger clamped to a meter, valve or hydrant. Deployed in batches across a DMA, it records overnight and uploads through the field app for same-day analysis.
- Deployment
- Meter · valve · hydrant
- Typical run
- Overnight · 24 h
- Used for
- Wide survey · pinpoint
sound
Sonic M2-L
A fixed acoustic logger for valve chambers. The sensor head couples directly to the valve body and the unit reports leak sound on a schedule, every day, without a site visit.
- Mounts to
- Valve body in chamber
- Measures
- Leak sound
- Reports
- Scheduled · remote
pressure
Sonic M2-P
A fixed pressure logger installed on a hydrant or a tee. Continuous pressure is what turns a suspicious noise into a confirmed leak — and what exposes a slow structural drop across a district.
- Mounts to
- Hydrant · tee fitting
- Measures
- Line pressure
- Reports
- Continuous · remote
Leak detection process
Four stages, from a five-second listen to a permanent watch.
A district is worked in passes. Each stage narrows the suspect list, and only a confirmed position reaches the excavation crew — after which the repaired network stays under watch.
-
Leak screeningSTAGE 01Sonic GL · ~5 s / point
-
Detailed inspectionSTAGE 02Sonic GL · 24 h
-
PinpointingSTAGE 03Ground survey
-
Leak monitoringSTAGE 04Sonic M2 · continuous
Leak screening
About five seconds of leak sound at every meter and valve on the route. Each recording is scored the same day.
Detailed inspection
Suspect points get a Sonic GL left in place for 24 hours, so the leak sound is read as a full daily pattern.
Pinpointing
Where the 24-hour pattern confirms a leak, the road surface nearby is surveyed until the position is fixed — before digging.
Leak monitoring
After the repair, Sonic M2 units stay on the network and keep reporting, so a new or returning leak is caught at once.
Stage 04 in detail
After the repair, the network keeps reporting.
Sonic M2-P goes on the hydrants, Sonic M2-L into the valve chambers. Between them the district reports pressure and leak sound continuously, and the platform flags what is new, persistent or getting worse.
Outcome
What changes once the platform is running.
| Measure | Conventional | With NELOW | What makes the difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detection accuracy | 70–80% | 90% | The LLM weighs sound, pressure, leak history and the knowledge map together — not one signal at a time. |
| Time to detect | 1 month | 1 hour | Sensors collect continuously and models score on arrival, so a new leak lands in that day’s report. |
| Time to a response plan | 24 hours | 1 hour | The agent drafts the plan the moment the leak is confirmed, with no analyst in the loop. |
Track record
Proven in the field, protected by IP.
NELOW is deployed with water utilities across ten countries.
KOICA
A record of multilateral and bilateral development projects.
17 domestic and 10 overseas registrations, including a pipe-insertable leak sound detection device, with 4 applications pending.
GS, KC, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, CE and FCC — plus 6 registered designs and trademarks.
Adoption
Four ways to bring NELOW in.
The commercial model follows the utility’s environment — from an installable platform to a contract paid out of the water it saves.
NELOW, installed
The NELOW AI platform delivered as an installable version inside the utility’s own environment.
NELOW, subscribed
The same platform as a subscription service, with no infrastructure to build or operate.
Water AI-platform integration
An AI transformation project that folds NELOW into an existing water management system.
Performance-based project
An NRW reduction programme delivered with NELOW and paid against the reduction actually achieved.
Find out what your network is losing.
Tell us the DMA and we will come back with a survey plan.
