Targetless Photogrammetry Network Simulation for Inspection Planning in Oil and Gas Industry

Abstract

Abstract. The oil and gas offshore industry demands regular inspections of components and structures that are subjected to extreme operational and environmental conditions. In this context, risers are pipelines that transport mainly oil, gas, water, and cables between submarine structures and the surface offshore platform, in the portion not touching the ocean floor. The emerged part of these risers is typically inspected by industrial climbing, which is a very time-consuming activity, has high operational costs, is dangerous and has a strong dependence on inspector skills. Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) have been recently used for visual inspection of risers, however, no quantitative or geometrical evaluation has been conducted using this kind of image acquisition yet. An image-based measurement technique, such as close-range photogrammetry, can provide a 3D reconstruction using images, but a series of requisites is mandatory to achieve good results as image acquisition sequence, overlap, camera positioning network, spatial resolution and object texture in non-prepared and targetless scenes. The analysis of different image acquisition strategies using a real RPAS is too difficult because it demands a lot of time, good weather, daylight, and a scene similar to where risers are installed. An alternative is to use simulation. In this paper a ROS/Gazebo simulation is described and used to create a realistic textured 3D virtual environment of the platform, risers and RPA, providing a fast and low-cost solution to simulate different RPA trajectories for photogrammetry image acquisition in targetless scenes. These trajectories are evaluated by comparing the measured risers through photogrammetry to its CAD/simulated model. Since the scene is not prepared, the RPA position/orientation or a stereo vision setup can be used to set scale to the measurement result. The best trajectory found during simulations was also evaluated in a real experiment.

Rpa Positioning Error Influence on Close Range Photogrammetry for Industrial Inspection

“…Considering these factors for a successful and high-quality measurement on one hand and the real conditions found in the offshore riser measurement task and limitations with the RPA and camera gimbal used on the other hand, a trajectory for image acquisition is proposed. The details and previous simulations of this developed trajectory can be found in (Buschinelli et al, 2020).…”

Advances in Research on the Use of Drones in Production and Transportation Engineering in the Hydrocarbons Industry: A Bibliometric Analysis

“…In Canada, the application is based on the detection and repair of methane leaks [25], inventory of equipment in oil fields, rescue missions and disaster management. Brazil uses short-range photogrammetry for the visual inspection of risers [26]; in France and Mexico, it is used mainly for environmental inspection and monitoring [27], and Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Spain for pipe inspection owing to its low cost [28]. There are countries with fewer than three registered articles (Fig.…”

Low-Cost DGPS Assisted Aerial Triangulation for Sub-Decimetric Accuracy With Non-RTK Uavs

“…In the past few years Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been widely considered as a valuable tool for applications, such as mapping (Zhang, 2008;Remondino et al, 2011;Nex et al, 2014;Neitzel et al, 2011, Taddia et al, 2020, inspections (Buschinelli et al, 2020;Pinto et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2017), 3D modelling (Püschel et al, 2008;Remondino et al, 2011;Murtiyoso et al, 2017) and hazard monitoring (Chou et al, 2010;Gonçalves et al, 2015;Giordan et al, 2017). By carrying cameras, UAVs are cost-effective alternatives to traditional manned aerial platforms for performing aerial photogrammetry.…”