Concepts for drone based pipeline leak detection

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.