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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Robot. AI
Sec. Field Robotics
Volume 11 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/frobt.2024.1426206
This article is part of the Research Topic Robotic Applications for a Sustainable Future View all 4 articles
Concepts for Drone Based Pipeline Leak Detection
Provisionally accepted- 1 Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Flight Guidance, Braunschweig, Germany
- 2 Air Liquide (France), Paris, France
- 3 National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, United Kingdom
- 4 Institute of Atmospheric Physics, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Cologne, Germany
- 5 Physical-Technical Federal Institute, Braunschweig/Brunswick, Niedersachsen, Germany
The quickly developing drone technology can be used efficiently in the field of pipeline leak detection. The aim of this article is to provide drone mission concepts for detecting releases from pipelines. It provides an overview of the current applications of natural gas pipeline surveys, it considers environmental conditions by plume modelling, it discusses suitable commercially available sensors, and develops concepts for routine monitoring of pipelines and short term missions for localising and identifying a known leakage. Suitable platforms depend on the particular mission and requirements concerning sensors and legislation. As an illustration, a feasibility study during a release experiment is introduced. The main challenge of this study was the variability of wind direction on a time scale of minutes, which produces considerable differences to the plume simulations. Nevertheless, the leakage rates derived from the observations are in the same order of magnitude as the emission rates. Finally the results from the modeling, the release experiment and possible drone scenarios are combined and requirements for future application derived.
Keywords: Drone, Leak detection, Methane, pipeline, SDG13, plume modeling, release experiment
Received: 30 Apr 2024; Accepted: 19 Jul 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Bretschneider, Bollmann, Houssin-Agbomson, Shaw, Howes, Nguyen, Robinson, Helmore, Lichtenstern, Nwaboh, Pogány, Ebert and Lampert. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Lutz Bretschneider, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Flight Guidance, Braunschweig, Germany
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