Audience questions answered by Atmos’ in-house fuel theft expert
Pipeline theft and vandalism can lead to the loss of millions of dollars of revenue each year, loss of lives due to safety breaches such as explosions, environmental damage if product is spilled and left undetected and reputational damage, which can take years to recover from.
In response to a call for questions about pipeline fuel theft and illegal tapping, Atmos’ Sales and Senior Research Engineer and in-house theft expert Harry Smith provided answers. The questions he answered include:
- How have monitoring technologies like SCADA based systems and acoustic sensors been improved with the emergence of AI
With evolving measures to prevent illegal tapping, how have the methods of the thieves changed?- How is satellite imagery, specifically Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and high-resolution optical imagery, being used to identify suspicious ground activity near a pipeline right-of- way?
- What are the technical limitations and advantages of using satellite technology for theft detection compared to on-the-ground sensors?
- What can be done to prevent cyber-attacks on SCADA systems and how big is the aspect of cybersecurity in the development of new systems?
- What are the challenges in synchronizing and interpreting data from different detection systems with varying sample rates and measurement principles?
- What are the technical considerations for strategically placing sensors along a pipeline to maximize the probability of detecting a tap? Is there an advantage using point sensors compared to continuous sensors and vice versa?
- What are the primary sources of false positives in AI-based pipeline detection systems and how can machine learning help with reducing them?
Find out more by reading the full Q&A on Pipeline Technology Journal’s site.