A four-company consortium conducts drone flight demonstration test
A four-company consortium comprising INPEX CORPORATION (INPEX), INPEX Pipeline (Japan) Co., Ltd. (INPEX PL), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI), and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Machinery Technology Corporation (MHIMT) conducted a demonstration test operating a drone controlled by CoasTitan, MHI’s networked security system with uncrewed autonomous vehicles, according to INPEX's release.
The demonstration test was conducted in Kashiwazaki City in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, along the natural gas trunk pipeline operated by INPEX and maintained and managed by INPEX’s wholly owned subsidiary INPEX PL.
The test confirmed the safety of long- distance autonomous drone flights utilizing long term evolution (LTE), a communications standard for mobile devices. In addition, highly innovative measures, including real time confirmation of road conditions using artificial intelligence (AI) and low latency video transmission, confirmed the potential for remotely patrolling pipeline routes using drones.
INPEX’s domestic natural gas business is supported by infrastructure including a natural gas trunk pipeline network extending more than 1,500 kilometers. A large portion of this network runs underground beneath public roadways, and unreported roadworks could cause roadwork accidents such as pipeline ruptures or gas leaks.
Accordingly, INPEX PL uses motor vehicles to regularly patrol roadways along the pipeline routes to locate unreported roadwork activities before they occur or as early as possible. The use of drones is expected to increase the frequency of patrols and further minimize the risk of roadwork accidents, which will help ensure safe and reliable gas supply to customers. Replacing vehicles with drones would also eliminate the heightened risk of traffic accidents involving patrol officers resulting from extended driving.
INPEX and MHI concluded a memorandum of understanding in 2016 to jointly study solutions to technological challenges in the energy sector. Since fiscal 2020, the two companies have been jointly considering ways to automate pipeline patrols using drones, including conducting test flights with drones. This has involved applying the CoasTitan networked security system with uncrewed autonomous vehicles developed by MHI’s Integrated Defense & Space Systems segment, in combination with an AI-based automatic system discerning road conditions newly developed by MHIMT, as an alternative to the current visual verifications conducted through motor vehicle patrols.
The four-company consortium will further conduct long-distance autonomous flights, improve the precision of the AI-based object discernment system, and consider measures for safe flight operations, with the aim of implementing automated drone pipeline patrols at an early stage.
