Systems and methods for likelihood-based mapping of areas surveyed for gas leaks using mobile survey equipment

摘要

In some embodiments, vehicle-based natural gas leak detection methods are used to generate 2-D spatial distributions (heat maps) of gas emission source probabilities and surveyed area locations using measured gas concentrations and associated geospatial (e.g. GPS) locations, wind direction and wind speed, and atmospheric condition data. Bayesian updates are used to incorporate the results of one or more measurement runs into computed spatial distributions. Operating in gas-emission plume space rather than raw concentration data space allows reducing the computational complexity of updating gas emission source probability heat maps. Gas pipeline location data and other external data may be used to determine the heat map data.

主权项

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoding instructions which, when executed by a computer system comprising at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to:
identify a prior 2-D surveyed area according to a first set of gas emission survey data resulting from a first mobile measurement run performed by a mobile measurement device along a first measurement path, the first set of gas emission survey data comprising a trajectory of the first measurement path and a first set of associated atmospheric condition data characterizing the first mobile measurement run; and update the prior 2-D surveyed area to generate a posterior 2-D surveyed area according to a second set of gas emission survey data resulting from a second mobile measurement run, the second set of gas emission survey data comprising a second set of associated atmospheric condition data characterizing the second mobile measurement run, wherein updating the prior 2-D surveyed area comprises determining a posterior probability of missing detection of a potential gas source situated at a given location according to: i. a prior probability of missing detection of the potential gas source situated at the given location after the first mobile measurement run, and ii. a probability of missing detection of the potential gas source situated at the given location during the second mobile measurement run.