Drone Technology in Alaska Delivering Real-Time Data
8Oil company British Petroleum is using a copter drone to buzz around the oil and gas pipelines in giant oil field Prudhoe Bay to look for possible leaks or corrosion. The low-definition video is fed real-time to computers over an encrypted wireless network; HD video is saved onboard.
Curt Smith, a chief technology officer for BP, says the drones can hover around and even underneath the pipeline – something manned aircraft can’t do. And says the drones use cameras or LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) remote sensing technology using a technique that sounds an awful lot like getting an MRI from a doctor. “The (drones) take pictures that have lots of overlap, going back and forth almost like a ‘push broom’ -- building up the picture from all these dots of data that get photographed.” Read the full story: http://newsroom.cisco.com/feature-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1482656