Chemical Industry - Jamming Unfriendly Drones

In my previous posts, I have described 3 potential benefits of drones in the chemical industry - Inspection, 3D-Modelling, Monitoring. 

But drones are invasive and intrusive. Even the most rudimentary chemical company is paranoid about security. All of them forbid photography expressly, and require some kind of permit to enter the premises. The Jubail industrial complex in Saudi Arabia is in a sterile zone with armed police guarding the outer perimeter and each plant site has two levels of fencing. Drones will make mockery of even this kind of security. Inspection and espionage are two sides of the same coin. When an evil eye inspects, it is espionage. So the chemical industry is rightly worried about the misuse and abuse of drones. At stake is intellectual property worth trillions of dollars. It also makes the industry very vulnerable to terrorist threats. Chemical companies will have to conjure something equally innovative to detect and jam unfriendly drones.

And now comes the news that such a cutting edge defence system has been developed and is being tested in a UK prison. The system will seize control of the drone once it crosses the "fence" 

Drones : A futuristic application in the Chemical Industry

Read the earlier 2 posts on Drones here and more : 

Another futuristic application of drones that I envisage is using them as an advanced warning system about the safety and health of the plant as a whole. Every chemical plant has fugitive emissions from hundreds of components: flange gaskets, pump seals, valve packing etc. These fugitive emissions constitute a unique “chemical signature” of the plant. A sudden spike in the fugitive emissions can be used as an alert to a possible malfunction and preventive intervention before things go out of hand. This would require fitting drones with sophisticated sensors which can sniff out chemicals in trace concentrations. Such sensors, for example Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, are already becoming available and the technology is poised for further improvement. Drones would obviate the need to fit multiple sensors at many locations and make data collection simple and inexpensive. Such drones can also be deployed to keep tabs on illicit production of chemical weapons and enforce CWC. 

More on Drones and the Chemical Industry

Read my earlier post on Drones here first. 

Another potential application of drones is in reconstructing 3D models of old plants. A large proportion of today’s plants are built during the time when CAD has not made its mark, using paper drawings or at best plastic models. This primitive documentation becomes a hurdle when these plants have to be revamped or modified, because the present generation engineers are more conversant and comfortable with 3D design. Some of the plant owners have undertaken exercises to reconstruct their plant in 3D formats. These are based on laser scanning techniques and are expensive and time-consuming and also far from perfect. Drones fitted with special cameras can fly computer controlled sorties to construct 3D images of plants. Such services are already being offered by more than one company in USA.

Kolmogorov’s Theory

Yesterday, I heard about Kolmogorov for the first time. None of the Transport Phenomenon text books of my time mentioned his name, which is not so surprising; because he was a Russian.  In 1941, Andrei Kolmogorov published a paper, which founded the mathematical analysis of turbulence.  While turbulence can be felt and even seen, it is extremely difficult to grasp mathematically.

Turbulence results in eddies of many different sizes.  The eddies are unstable and breakdown rapidly. The larger sized eddies transfer their energy to smaller sized eddies and so on till they finally breakdown and all energy is dissipated. Kolmogorov developed a formula for this energy transfer. This is an extremely simplified explanation and the mathematics can get scary even for engineers.

E(k,ψ) = Ck^-5/3ψ^2/3

Kolmogorov’s Theory is useful for simulating, predicting and understanding mixing patterns in agitated vessels. Always good to keep learning new things. 

Drones in Chemical Industry

Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) as they are known technically have been around for a very long time now. The term ‘Drone’ was coined by US Navy, since it was inspired by Queen Bee, the remotely controlled aircraft used by British Navy. This was in 1935 and since then drones have got smaller, swifter and smarter. One industry which hopes to benefit immensely from drones is the US$ 4 trillion chemical industry.

Drones literally elevate process plant inspection into a different orbit. Firstly the frequency of inspection can be as warranted by the situation and not tied down to the availability of infrastructure and / or experts. No need to fly out experts to the site. High resolution images can be viewed by experts sitting in the comfort of their offices or homes. No time wasted on erecting clumsy scaffoldings in difficult to access areas. Flying a drone is as simple as throwing up a paper plane. And the drones can fly irrespective of the rough weather. 

Secondly the quality of drone inspection is superior. The probes carried by the drones can get much close to the metal than the human face or hand without fear of making contact. The human subjectivity while collecting data can be completely eliminated by building artificial intelligence into the drone. Some people are calling Drones “the flying computers”. Also the data collected by the drone can be analysed by more than one expert at multiple locations, in real time. And lastly, but most importantly, Drones make inspections safer, totally eliminating the need for workmen weighed down by protective equipment to ascend vertiginous heights in inclement weather. Dow Chemical became the first company to use drones for plant inspection after getting approval from US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2015.