How we flew drones through landfills and looked for methane leaks

Flight map, points with a methane concentration of over 3,000 ppm * m are marked. And that is a lot!



Imagine that you have a landfill that smokes and stinks from time to time. This is due to the fact that with the decay of organics, various gases are formed. In this case, not only methane is formed, but also completely poisonous gases, therefore, solid waste landfills sometimes need to be examined.



Usually this is done on foot with a wearable methane detector, but in practice it is very difficult, for a long time and generally not very necessary for the landfill owners.



But this is necessary for the city government, municipal authorities, the region, etc., where the landfill or the authorized landfill is located, environmentalists and ordinary people who want to breathe clean air.



The service of automated measurement of methane level using drones is very popular in Europe.



We, together with our partners from the company Pergamum , carried out joint work in this direction and got an interesting result.

What is regulated?

The regulatory framework for solid waste landfills - instructions for the design, operation and reclamation of landfills for solid household waste (approved by the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation on November 2, 1996), sanitary rules SP 2.1.7.1038-01 "Hygienic requirements for the design and maintenance of landfills for solid household waste ”(approved by the Decree of the Chief State Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation dated May 30, 2001 No. 16), the concept of solid waste management in the Russian Federation MDS 13-8.2000 (approved by the Resolution of the Board of the Gosstroy of the Russian Federation dated December 22, 1999 No. 17) , AA 2.1.6.1032-01. 2.1.6. Atmospheric air and indoor air, sanitary air protection. Hygienic requirements for ensuring the quality of atmospheric air in populated areas (approved by the Chief State Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation on 05.17.2001).



The maximum permissible concentrations for this set of documents are as follows: Typical Biogas Composition:

Biogas is released up to 12–15 years old, and after the second year it is mainly only methane or only carbon dioxide (or a mixture of them).

How to look for leaks now

To find methane exit points at landfills, the labor of crawlers is used. They take a hand-held gas analyzer (in common people - “sniffer”) and one more thing that looks like an umbrella, the lineman chooses a place on the training ground. It sets up a small dome there and waits for a certain concentration of gas to accumulate under the dome. Measures the level of concentration using a gas analyzer and captures the readings of the device. After that, he moves to another point for the next measurement. And so on.



The process is quite simple, but very inefficient in terms of the number of measurements taken per unit time. We add here the human factor and the hellish working conditions of the lineman, who has to spend hours walking around the stinking range (probably, after all, using personal protective equipment).

Drone to help us

At the end of 2018, at the INTERGEO 2018 exhibition (Frankfurt), we got acquainted with the Pergamum technology and their experience in droning over solid waste landfills. The guys began to use a drone with a remote methane laser detector installed on it to search for leaks. A logger was installed on board the drone, which writes all the readings of the detector. Upon completion of the flyby, information from the logger is transferred to the computer in the form of tabular data for analysis. If somewhere there is an excess of methane concentration, the drone is sent to this point again to photograph the leak.



By that time, the guys from Pergamum had already made a series of overflights of solid waste landfills, and they realized that flying legally is quite simple. The following process has turned out:

1. Such drone flights are usually agreed upon within two weeks after compliance with legal formalities: obtaining the permission of the owner of the territory, approved by the aviation authorities and the administration of the area of ​​the flight plan. An application for setting the local flight regime is sent to the zonal center (LC) three to five days before the start of work, the flight plan is sent the day before the start of work. On the day of commencement of work, it is necessary to call two hours in the LC, before take-off you need to call all the responsible authorities. Responsible authorities are identified by the common map “Airspace of the Russian Federation” (VP of the RF). It seems that changes will come soon, and it will be possible to fly at altitudes of up to 150 meters within the line of sight.
2. Each time the flight begins with measuring the direction and speed of the wind, atmospheric pressure. If the wind speed is more than four meters per second, then they do not fly, because the result is unpredictable: you can detect a leak in the wrong place (physically blow it in the opposite direction).
3. The on-site drone operator itself minimizes the number of turns and calculates a flight time of approximately 25 minutes. In general, you can reduce the flight time from 5 to 20%, depending on weather conditions.
4. It is better to start flights from the leeward side so that the scanning takes place in the wind.
5. The drone’s flight altitude is enough to search for leaks - 15 meters.
6. If there is permission for aerial photography, then you can photograph the place of ejection with a thermal imager and in the visible range.

Compared to the work of lineman - a breakthrough! But the detector used by Pergamum for overflights had a significant drawback: the lack of a communication channel between the detector and the operator during the flight. Information about leaks could be obtained only after the landing of the drone.

Pergamum + CROC + SPH

By the time of acquaintance with Pergamum, CROC just had an on-board computer for the DJI Matrice 600 drone, which could also broadcast telemetry via DJI LightBridge 2. Pergam immediately became interested in the product and suggested downlink integration for their product - an LMC remote methane detector for the drone.



As a result, there was a joint development of CROC (Russia), Pergam-Engineering (Russia) and SPH Engineering (Latvia, UGCS software manufacturer) - the LMC G2 DL complex (Laser Methane Copter Generation 2 with Downlink). This is the second generation of a hardware and software complex for methane leak detection (CH4).



The solution includes a DJI Matrice 600 drone with a take-off mass of 11 kilograms, equipped with a remote methane laser detector and an on-board computer. The new software allows you to accurately register the flight path at a given altitude and at the required speed, instantly react in case of methane leakage, accurately locate the place and take timely measures.



Now the process is this:



1. In order not to miss a small piece of the training ground, the flight plan is created in the UgCS software. It takes minutes. At the same time, you can do it in a warm office and not freeze yourself ... your hands.





Drone flight plan in UgCS software.



2. Next, the operator prepares the drone at the take-off point at the training ground. And through the mobile application UgCS launches flight.





Concentration is normal.





Leak detected.



3. Further, thanks to our on-board computer, the readings of the methane detector online are sent to the mobile application. In this case, the on-board computer in case of loss of connection with the ground records all indications from the device on the SD card.



4. All excess levels of methane concentration can be immediately marked on the map. You no longer spend time postprocessing to localize the leak.



5. Profit!



CROC environmentalist comment:

There is no law that the landfill should officially detect any leaks, but methane is a greenhouse gas, and we have been forbidden greenhouse gases for 20 years. There is a Kyoto protocol, and within the framework of the Clean Air project, which relates to the Ecology national project, there will most likely be a law on quotas. And they will start trading these quotas. And each company must understand whether they have the ability to minimize or control emissions.



Supervisory authority - Rosprirodnadzor. The landfill itself is an engineering structure, that is, it must undergo Glavgosexpertiza. There is industrial and environmental control. The frequency of this control is set depending on the danger and for each specific landfill. Suppose a laboratory comes every three months and measures something - usually water, soil, air. Good landfills themselves arrange pipelines for landfill gas and use this gas for their needs. Usually there are from 40 percent methane. If it explodes, there will be destroyed communications, possibly human casualties, a powerful surge ... And then a criminal case will be brought against the owner. And no one is interested in this. A drone in the same Krasnoyarsk, for example, is very economically sound. Two people plus a guard with a gun (seriously - there are bears), an all-terrain vehicle that breaks once every 20-40 km, accommodation, northern daily allowance.

Drones can be used a lot where. Burn interference on a troll, irrigate a field, throw a raft to a drowning man, fly through a fire and find all the people, track poachers or look for hemp plantations, make an inventory in the warehouse - this is as much as you like. And in general, everything that your imagination will allow. We are interested in new tasks, and we can and want to try to solve your problem. Well, if you have the task of finding leaks, I have a pilot project with me on the most interesting one. Mail - ALevandovskiy@croc.ru.

References

• Drones show .
• The use of sawn civil drones for professional geodetic aerial photography of the area .
• My mail is ALevandovskiy@croc.ru.