Small Unmanned Aerial System (sUAS) Gate Station and Pipeline Assets Inspection

Under Development

Northeast Gas Association, NYSEARCH More »

Northeast Gas Association/NYSEARCH

The sUAS (drone) is being evaluated for inspections of gate stations and pipelines. NYSEARCH, working with its contractor Pictometry, deployed sUAS for test flights in 2015. Following this successful deployment, NuAir Alliance assisted NYSEARCH in obtaining an exemption to fly test flights without pre-approval. As a result, the project team has collected high resolution imagery of multiple gate station assets. Additional flights are now planned for other test areas.

sUAS is a field demonstration project to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of gate station and pipeline inspections while providing the opportunity to reduce the cost or provide the opportunity for additional inspections for the same cost, lower the risk to employees and provide a permanent record of the inspection event.

Increased Safety - sUAS offers benefits to increase worker safety by providing visual access to location that have previously been challenging to access. Safety advantages are also anticipated due to the opportunity for more frequent inspections at reduced cost.

Reduced Operations Cost - Facility inspections often include the need to provide access to locations that may require additional or specialized equipment or are located beyond easy access from a roadway. sUAS could reduce or eliminate the need for costly or specialized equipment to gain access to company facilities.

NYSEARCH, Copyright 2016. http://www.nysearch.org/news-info_110216.php