Small unmanned airborne systems to support oil and gas pipeline monitoring and mapping

Acknowledgments We thank Johan Havelaar, Aeryon Labs Inc., AeronVironment Inc. and Aeronautics Inc. for kindly permitting the use of materials in Fig. 1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Thin film deposition and characterization of pure and iron-doped electron-beam evaporated tungsten oxide for gas sensors

Pure Tungsten Oxide (WO3) and Iron-doped (10 at%) Tungsten Oxide (WO3:Fe) nanostructured thin films were prepared using a dual crucible Electron Beam Evaporation techniques. The films were deposited at room temperature in high vacuum condition on glass substrate and post-heat treated at 300 oC for 1 hour. From the study of X-ray diffraction and Raman the characteristics of the as-deposited WO3 and WO3:Fe films indicated non-crystalline nature. The surface roughness of all the films showed in the order of 2.5 nm as observed using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) analysis revealed tungsten oxide films with stoichiometry close to WO3. The addition of Fe to WO3 produced a smaller particle size and lower porosity as observed using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). A slight difference in optical band gap energies of 3.22 eV and 3.12 eV were found between the as-deposited WO3 and WO3:Fe films, respectively. However, the difference in the band gap energies of the annealed films were significantly higher having values of 3.12 eV and 2.61 eV for the WO3 and WO3:Fe films, respectively. The heat treated samples were investigated for gas sensing applications using noise spectroscopy and doping of Fe to WO3 reduced the sensitivity to certain gasses. Detailed study of the WO3 and WO3:Fe films gas sensing properties is the subject of another paper

Modelling of Sub-Sea Gas Transmission Pipeline to Predict Insulation Failure

Background: Thermally insulated subsea production and transmission systems are becoming more common in deep-water/ offshore operations. Premature failures of the insulation materials for these gas transmission pipelines have had significant operational impacts. The ability to timely detect these failures within these systems has been a very difficult task for the oil and gas industries. Thus, periodic survey of the subsea transmission systems is the present practice. In addition, a new technology called optic-fibre Distributed Temperature Sensing system (DTS) is now being used to monitor subsea transmission pipeline temperatures; but this technology is rather very expensive. Objective: However, this study proposed a model which will not only predict premature insulation failure in these transmission pipelines; but will also predict the section of the transmission line where the failure had occurred. Methods: From this study, we deduced that in gas pipeline flow, exit temperature for the system increases exponentially with the distance of insulation failure and approaches the normal operation if the failure occurs towards the exit of the gas pipe. This model can also be used to check the readings of an optic-fibre distributed temperature sensors. Result and Conclusion: After developing this model using classical visual basic and excel package, the model was validated by cross plotting the normal temperature profiles of the model and field data; and R-factor of 0.967 was obtained. Analysis of the results obtained from the model showed that insulation failure in subsea gas transmission pipeline can be predicted on a real-time basis by mere reading of the arrival temperature of a gas transmission line

Structural and gas-sensing properties of CuO–CuxFe3−xO4 nanostructured thin films

Nanocrystalline CuO–CuxFe3−xO4 thin films were developed using a radio-frequency sputtering method followed by a thermal oxidation process. Thin films were deposited applying two very different conditions by varying the argon pressure and the target-to-substrate distance. Structural, microstructural and gas-sensing characteristics were performed using grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GXRD), Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and electrical measurements. Their sensing properties were examined using hydrogen gas in dry synthetic air. The shortest response and recovery times were observed between 280 and 300 °C independently of the deposition conditions

Improvement of the sensory and autonomous capability of robots through olfaction: the IRO Project

Proyecto de Excelencia Junta de Andalucía TEP2012-530Olfaction is a valuable source of information about the environment that has not been su ciently exploited in mobile robotics yet. Certainly, odor information can contribute to other sensing modalities, e.g. vision, to successfully accomplish high-level robot activities, such as task planning or execution in human environments. This paper describes the developments carried out in the scope of the IRO project, which aims at making progress in this direction by investigating mechanisms that exploit odor information (usually coming in the form of the type of volatile and its concentration) in problems like object recognition and scene-activity understanding. A distinctive aspect of this research is the special attention paid to the role of semantics within the robot perception and decisionmaking processes. The results of the IRO project have improved the robot capabilities in terms of efciency, autonomy and usefulness.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Advancing national greenhouse gas inventories for agriculture in developing countries : improving activity data, emission factors and software technology

Peer reviewedPublisher PD