A Novel Method to Enhance Pipeline Trajectory Determination Using Pipeline Junctions

Abstract

Pipeline inspection gauges (pigs) have been used for many years to perform various maintenance operations in oil and gas pipelines. Different pipeline parameters can be inspected during the pig journey. Although pigs use many sensors to detect the required pipeline parameters, matching these data with the corresponding pipeline location is considered a very important parameter. High-end, tactical-grade inertial measurement units (IMUs) are used in pigging applications to locate the detected problems of pipeline using other sensors, and to reconstruct the trajectories of the pig. These IMUs are accurate; however, their high cost and large sizes limit their use in small diameter pipelines (8″ or less). This paper describes a new methodology for the use of MEMS-based IMUs using an extended Kalman filter (EKF) and the pipeline junctions to increase the position parameters’ accuracy and to reduce the total RMS errors even during the unavailability of above ground markers (AGMs). The results of this new proposed method using a micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)-based IMU revealed that the position RMS errors were reduced by approximately 85% compared to the standard EKF solution. Therefore, this approach will enable the mapping of small diameter pipelines, which was not possible before.

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping for Inspection Robots in Water and Sewer Pipe Networks: A Review

“…Drift is the key problem with dead-reckoning sensors, and so dead-reckoning has also been combined with drift correction methods using detected landmark locations. The landmarks can either be naturally occurring, such as pipe-length joints [180], [183]- [185] or deliberately added to the pipe network, such as GPS-located above ground reference stations [186], [187]. Pipe-length joints can be detected using magnetic flux leakage and electromagnetic acoustic transducers [180], [184], or from the vibration signal from an accelerometer as the robot passes through the joint [183].…”

A Comprehensive Review of Micro-Inertial Measurement Unit Based Intelligent PIG Multi-Sensor Fusion Technologies for Small-Diameter Pipeline Surveying

“…Finally, all of this information is integrated to calculate the precise trajectory coordinate of the PIG. Furthermore, the travel distance of the gyroscopic PIG is determined by the rope length and the adjacent valves of the surveyed pipeline, which is usually less than 100 m [ 41 ]. The trajectory of the inspected pipeline surveying precision is usually less than 1 m because both the online and offline estimation technologies are used to improve the surveying precision of the gyroscopic PIG.…”

“…Usually, there are four types of intelligent PIGs that are widely used for the PIM of the small-diameter pipeline, which are categorized by the regular smart PIG, the remoted PIG, the gyroscopic PIG and the SmartBall PIG according to their dynamic motion mechanisms for surveying various pipelines [36][37][38][39][40]. These are shown in Figure 1 In Figure 1a, the regular smart PIG is snake-shaped, which carries the pipeline defect detection sensors and the pipeline surveying sensors by several cylindrical sections, to implement the surveying of the inspected pipelines after it is driven by the pressure differential between the two adjacent ends of the cylindrical sections [26,27,41]. Specifically, the operating interval time and travel distance between each launching and receiving are determined by the installed batteries and the smoothing condition of the inner surface of the inspected pipeline.…”

Robot Localization in Water Pipes Using Acoustic Signals and Pose Graph Optimization

“…Therefore, methods have been developed to use IMU measurements in combination with tethers measuring distance travelled [ 16 , 17 ], knowledge of known landmark positions [ 18 , 19 ], and knowledge of the length of pipe sections [ 20 ] in order to correct drift. IMUs have also been used to detect features such as junctions and corners [ 15 , 21 , 22 ].…”