UAV's key role in protecting pipelines

“The FAA is not allowing us to fly in national airspace here in the US but the technology is more than capable of doing the work and doing it much better than any manned system by a long ways,” said Brian Whiteside, EVP for Evergreen Unmanned Systems.

Oregon-based Evergreen Aviation’s broad portfolio now includes commercial UAS operations, marking the first flights not under military or government control. They’re eager to serve the 100,000 miles of pipeline built each year to bring natural gas, crude oil and a medley of petroleum and hydrocarbon products around the world. Less than five per cent of those pipelines are in the Middle East, but Whiteside sees great potential here. “We would certainly love to work with some of the companies over there in Iraq or Saudi Arabia, but we haven’t had an opportunity to do it.” What’s needed, he added, is “figuring out who’s interested, making contact and connecting the dots”.

Stigma is an obstacle, Whiteside notes, with images of Predator drones and Hellfire missiles strong in many minds. But the technology is ready to go. “We do ice flow monitoring for the petroleum industry up in the arctic,” he said.

“If we wanted to, really, we could go fly anywhere in Africa. There aren’t a lot of rules. Over there, it’s making sure we get the contracts and build it from a business standpoint.”

Already, Evergreen is working with the Nigerian National Petroleum Council to build a business model to monitor and protect its jointly-owned pipeline. One mission would support law enforcement in tracking oil thieves. “We videotape what occurs and then we can follow that person home,” explains Whiteside.

Equipment attached to manned aircraft also attaches to UAS, such as radio transceivers, which read pressure measurements from sensors along the pipeline. “One of the reasons people want to use UAS to patrol pipelines is you can fly over the pipeline and map it out and get a really good resolution and coordinates in great detail,” Whiteside said. Comparing that data against live measurements on each flight reveals potential dangers over, under or around the pipelines, which are often underground. “Automatically, now, it can tell you if there’s a change in what you previously knew, like if somebody’s building a house or if there’s a landslide. They’ve got to make sure nobody is digging or preparing to dig along a pipeline.”

Whiteside compares those repeated missions to driving down the same road twice. “If somebody paints a house differently, are you really going to notice unless it’s bright pink?

  “Also, if you’ve got a security manager or a safety manager, he could be sitting in his home and give a real-time report. In Iraq, or Afghanistan, where there’s a  threat of getting shot at, this technology is great because you don’t risk any loss of human life.”

No specific UAS is best for pipeline monitoring, Whiteside suggests, though in Nigeria they’re proposing the Hermes 450 and ScanEagle. “We’re not really pushing the system. We’re pushing the capability and then we’re looking for the most effective and the competitive system for those requirements,” he said.