Drone technology and related data analysis software have been moving from infancy to maturity at a remarkable pace and this indicates an inevitable transformation in the process of asset management. There we're professionals in the industry who envision a day when offshore platforms (wind turbines, oil rigs, production platforms, etc) would have hangers for a drone and the drone would be programmed to fly around the asset facilities at set intervals (perhaps daily, monthly or quarterly) to capture data and then transmit the anomalous conditions to the control room for analysis — least human intervention envisaged and thus minimized safety issues, concerns or incidents.
That day has come and the UAS solution is called DJI Dock + M30T.
The equally important aspect of drone inspection technology to transform asset management is to create new standards that can apply in facilitation of drone inspection and bench marks to avoid non-qualified players to adversely affect this business sector performance. In this regards, equally important is the aspect that the drone inspection team which is deployed for inspection should be conversant with guidelines provided by relevant publications of API, IEC, ISO, NFPA, BS, ASME, CSA, ASTM and the like. Additionally for oil & gas assets, the products that are handled are inflammable which require adherence to Compliance Standards, Regulatory requirements and Security SOPs. It is therefore imperative that the selection of inspection partner for drone inspection of high-value energy assets should be carried out based on due diligence in the light of criteria stated in this article.
Airwrx® – Endeavors to Transform Asset Management with Minimized Risk to Personnel
Airwrx® entered the drone inspection market with a crystal clear vision of maximizing the benefit of this remarkable technology for their client and to support the industry in minimizing the risk to operations personnel. With its continued endeavours and collaboration with valued partners Airwrx® has successfully achieved development of Airolytics® software which is capable to fulfill the requirements of periodic and reliability centred maintenance planning.
Airolytics® easily handles the large numbers of thermal graphs and visual images, gathered during the inspection process, through its internal image optimization engine. Airolytics® is capable to implement machine learning through input data from drone and provides output reports in a fast and accurate manner thus providing necessary intelligence on asset integrity. The reports generated by Airolytics® allows timely and informed decisions to be made regarding impending failure situation or determination of remedial priorities through maintenance planning. Airolytics® thus ensures faster, better and most critical insight on key aspects of the high-value energy asset requiring action.
The team at Airwrx® firmly believes that the days of mobilizing a pilot to sites and manually flying the drone is over for select industrial applications. Airwrx® team shows the solutions for the painful issues of its valued clients through a planned process of inspection and reporting through a team of qualified inspectors and drone pilots. Our inspection process highlights are provided below:
Understanding the problem and inspection needs of the client
Planning the inspection process to minimize cost and eliminating the possibility of error.
Planning for safe inspection procedure, compliance to standards and implementing procedures under possibility of environmental hazards.
Installing the DJI DOCK and M30T at our clients facility.
Capturing all the required data and using it to find insights that can help the client in decision making process.
Standardizing the data collection process and making sure that that the quality of the data is the same every time. Our systems capture defects better than what is possible through human eyes.
Delivering a report the client that discusses the entire process of inspection, identified problems and possible solutions or remedial measures required to be implemented. Our recommendations are open to discussion with clients for appropriate implementation.
Follow up inspection and testing actions are also suggested where appropriate.
Airwrx® is also continuously interacting with people in the energy industry as they all have a different understanding of “what a damage is” and which damage is important. Airwrx® supports of building of consensus in the form of some developed standards – which, unfortunately, are not there at the moment. Airwrx® is confident that once humans have agreed on the correct classification of a problem, then it is much easier for the computers to interpret drone vision and apply machine learning aspects.