Eyes in the sky: Using aerial drones to power offshore operations

Drones can enhance the safety and efficiency of offshore oil and gas operations – but they require a strong, secure communications network to do so. Josh Parker of Rajant Corp. explains.

Image of how Rajant Kinetic Mesh Networks work in the oil and gas field. Images from Rajant.

Current methods of surveying, detecting and locating leaks in remote, rugged offshore oil and gas locations can be inefficient and cost-prohibitive due to shutdowns – and while safety is a major priority for offshore ventures, employees sometimes have to work in less-than-ideal conditions during the inspection process.

Modern technology has brought a solution to the safety and cost concerns associated with running a successful offshore operation: drones.

In general terms, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are simply any aircraft without a human pilot physically aboard the structure. A human operator may control the aircraft remotely, or it may be autonomous – with preset logistics dictating path, task, speed and more – controlled by a sophisticated software and GPS program.

Using drones for offshore operations can lower costs because of their speed, mobility and efficiency, and boost safety by eliminating the need for humans to perform some tasks.

How drones can enable offshore

Drones can be used in the offshore oil and gas industry for applications like flare stack inspections; offshore oil platform inspections; oil spill and damage detection; gas emissions monitoring; and security.

Drones can enable detailed optical imagery during flare stack head inspections, when fast flight control responsiveness is crucial. Employees don’t need to climb the stacks, reducing risk, and the flare stacks don’t need to shut down to ensure employee safety, eliminating the interruption of production – which can add up to as much as US$4 million, according to SkyFutures, a drone inspection company specializing in the oil and gas industry. An aerial inspection also allows early detection of any damage, including damage to piping, structural abnormalities, and other internal and external inconsistencies, allowing proactive maintenance.

During offshore oil platform inspections, drones can fly within a few feet of the offshore platform while sending real-time data to the operator on the rig or work boat, including high-definition video and still imagery from every angle. This provides operators with critical information that lets them assess the platform and plan any needed work in advance, with 360°3D mapping for a fully fleshed out picture – and again saves employees from having to physically be on the rigs to inspect them.

To prevent a worst-case scenario – an oil spill – it is crucial that precautionary measures are taken to prevent contamination, or quickly identify and mediate in the event of a spill. Drones can provide a critical role in response to oil spills, according to Nick Cunningham of The Fuse. Drones can be equipped with sensors that can measure and quantify oil spills to assess where and how fast the oil is spreading. If this information can come in real time, it can show response vessels exactly where to go and reduces recovery time and dispersal.

Gas emissions are especially difficult to monitor offshore. The optical sensors on some drones can manageably survey and identify leaks, reducing the cost of such inspections and making them safer for employees.

Some offshore vessels are stationed in places where piracy is a concern, and drones can keep infrastructure and assets more secure by providing eyes in the sky, giving operators a 360°aerial view of the surrounding area.

There are still obstacles to overcome before offshore operators can fully enjoy these benefits, however.

Connectivity challenges inherent to drones

In addition to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations, which are numerous, there are inherent challenges of using drones to perform offshore operations. These include:

• Poor security: A drone connected to a network is essentially a flying computer, and thus is as hackable as any computer or smartphone. Many networks on which drones operate are standard Wi-Fi, with low or no encryption. Drones also can be infiltrated by malware such as Maldrone, which is designed specifically to hack into UAVs via Internet connections.
  
  The malware acts as a link, or proxy, between the drone and the hacker, who can pull information about the drone and use it to manipulate its navigation. In the best-case scenario, the drone would veer off course or err in its tasks, and in the worst-case scenario, it could be used for cyber terrorism – neither of which is an option in offshore oil and gas production.
   
• Lack of scalability: For many networks, the more devices operating on a single network, the spottier the connection becomes. Critical-infrastructure industries like oil and gas need drones to carry out mission-critical tasks while concurrent applications use the same network – so without a powerful network, bandwidth is quickly eaten up.
   
• Lack of mobile connectivity: Many drones are designed to use a wireless connection to communicate with the pilot or command center, and once they are out of range, connectivity is lost. Because these “non-payload” connections are part of fixed infrastructure like cell towers and routers, they are static; they cannot move with the drone. The drone remains tied to a single access point and is unable to move beyond that network’s range – a major stumbling block because of the remote locations where many offshore operations occur.
  
  There are networks that are able to overcome these challenges, however – the implementation of which could allow the offshore sector to fully realize the potential that drones offer.

Rajant vessel / Rajant platform network.

A network to power drones

Kinetic mesh wireless networks have been deployed in the rugged oil and gas environment because they are highly secure, scalable and mobile, allowing a constant flow of real-time information with no downtime. 

Security

Kinetic mesh gives a secure, private backbone on which to transmit data from a drone to a user or control center while also detecting and preventing tampering and allowing encryption for data security.

Kinetic mesh delivers end-to-end encryption, with 256-bit, military-grade encryption. When encrypted information flows through the mesh and comes to another node, it stays encrypted all the way through, and is not decrypted until it is delivered to its final destination, ensuring privacy and security. Metadata also is encrypted; importantly, an attacker cannot analyze the traffic and see which nodes are communicating with other devices.

Additionally, kinetic mesh can be configured to authenticate packets at each hop in the network in order to detect in-flight data tampering, wireless packet replays, and attempts to inject packets by untrusted devices.

Scalability

In kinetic mesh, because there is no central control node, routes are built automatically. This allows the network to adapt to node location, local interference and congestion dynamically, even in rugged conditions that would cripple other networks.

A kinetic mesh network can be easily redeployed and expanded in multiple ways, while still operating with the same level of reliability – important because of the dynamic nature of offshore operations. While traditional mesh networks degrade as more nodes are added, kinetic mesh grows stronger with each additional node. The nodes self-configure, making it simple to expand the network.

Current FAA line-of-sight limitations state that only one operator may fly one single drone within the operator’s line-of-sight, without using binoculars or other ways to extend line of sight. By running the drones off a kinetic mesh network, however, a “string of pilots” means multiple pilots can operate a single drone across great distances. A pilot on a work boat, for example, can seamlessly turn over the control of the drone to another pilot on a more distant work boat, and so on, with as many pilots as needed to achieve substantial distances and reach remote offshore platforms and rigs. The drone is able to maintain connectivity to the mesh network despite the distance and without changing IP addresses, as would be the case on another type of network.

As FAA regulations on “one pilot, one drone” ease, and using kinetic mesh as a communications protocol, a single operator will be able to fly multiple drones across greater distances to gain more accurate, real-time intelligence on oil platforms through aerial surveillance or photography from multiple viewpoints. The network’s scalability means that there is no main access point; all nodes are peers to each other. There is no need to “budget” bandwidth, which limits the number of drones one operator can have in the air at one time.

Mobility

A drone operating off a standard network is bound to static infrastructure like mounted access points, towers or wireless routers, even though the drones are always on the go. In kinetic mesh, everything is constantly moving – including the infrastructure, allowing an expansive network footprint that functions even in applications such as offshore operations.

In a kinetic mesh network, multiple, redundant radio frequencies and any-node-to-any-node capabilities are deployed to continuously and instantly route data via the best-available path and frequency, even over dozens of nodes. If part of the network becomes congested or receives interference, the network leverages this multi-frequency, multi-radio functionality to instantaneously reroute around any obstacle, keeping the drones in the air and on task.

The future

There is huge potential for the offshore oil and gas industry to become safer, more productive and more intelligent by using drones – but there are still obstacles to overcome because of current network and regulatory limitations.

The industry continues to modernize its approaches, however – for example, it’s now very common (or even required, in some countries) for rigs to employ remote medics who can confer with physicians via teleconferencing for on-the-spot medical diagnoses and treatment on the rig. Companies may soon find that drones are as hard to live without as telemedicine used to be. With the right network, aerial drones can help the offshore oil and gas industry succeed by reaching new levels of efficiency and safety.

Josh Parker is director of product management at Rajant.

Read more

Day of the drones: In a short period of time, drones have shot to popularity as a tool for offshore oil and gas facility inspection. Elaine Maslin profiles the technology and its providers.