Autonomous tracking of oil and gas pipelines by an unmanned aerial vehicle

Amit Shukla, Huang Xiaoqian, Hamad Karki

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper presents automated navigation control of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for inspection of oil and gas pipelines. The pipelines carrying inflammable and toxic petroleum products require continuous inspection. An UAV equipped with non-contact sensors can be used for external inspection of the pipeline. Most of the UAVs used for surveillance purpose fly at very high altitude and same mechanism can not be used for low flying UAV while tracking ground structures such as pipelines. Current research work proposes novel two layers of autonomous navigation and tracking by UAV. First stage is identification of pipeline and second stage is tracking of it at low altitude. Identification and tracking of the pipelines as linear structure is based on image processing techniques without any assistance of GPS based localization. This autonomous navigation and tracking further has two layers of control loops, firstly angular correction and secondly lateral correction. Both the controllers are based on heuristically tuned simple PID controllers. Overall tracking has shown very good results in terms of stability and visibility of tracked structure from bottom camera of the UAV.

Original languageBritish English
Title of host publication2016 IEEE 59th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, MWSCAS 2016
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)9781509009169
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Jul 2016
Event59th IEEE International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, MWSCAS 2016 - Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Duration: 16 Oct 201619 Oct 2016

Publication series

NameMidwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems
Volume0
ISSN (Print)1548-3746

Conference

Conference59th IEEE International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, MWSCAS 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited Arab Emirates
CityAbu Dhabi
Period16/10/1619/10/16

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