Figure 9. Photographs of AprilTag detection by the drone during (a, b) precision landing and (c) under dynamic conditions.
Figure 10. Proposed concept and current prototype of the vertiport.
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charging system. This will involve configuring the drones to
establish a closed circuit with the charging pads upon landing,
allowing for seamless recharging without manual intervention.
These advancements will further the system’s ability to operate
autonomously in inaccessible environments, enhancing its
versatility for various applications beyond the original scope
of detecting abandoned oil wells emitting greenhouse gases.
Views of the proposed concept and the current prototype are
shown in Figure 10.
8. Conclusions
Drones have a wide range of applications across various
sectors, including smart cities, towns, villages, and industrial
and mining areas. This work focused on the development
of a bioinspired vertiport system to support drone-based
methane detection missions. The vertiport provides a robust
and efficient infrastructure for drone storage, charging, and
landing, enabling autonomous operations in remote areas
where methane-emitting orphaned wells are located. These
wells are often located in remote areas that are challenging for
technicians to access. Additionally, methane inhalation poses
significant health risks. Identifying orphaned wells emitting
methane gas across the US is a costly process due to their
increasing numbers and hard-to-reach geographical loca-
tions. The task requires expensive equipment, which is also
difficult to move from place to place, operated by experienced
and expert human technicians. As orphaned wells are often
scattered randomly across a particular site, this makes them
difficult to reach, making the task even more arduous and
time-consuming. In this context, the drone vertiport system
presents an effective solution to this problem. It requires only
two human technicians to place and activate the vertiport
system at any site, and the autonomous system will do the rest.
The drones will continuously scan the site to detect methane
emissions from orphaned wells in a proper surveillance
manner and send data to a remote data analysis and control
center. This approach will reduce the overall operational cost
as well as the human effort involved. It also saves time and
lowers the risk to human safety.
Given the high costs associated with plugging orphaned
wells, this autonomous system provides a cost-effective
approach by prioritizing wells with the highest emissions for
remediation. The strategy aims to minimize overall methane
emissions by addressing the most critical sources first, thereby
reducing the maximum emissions with the minimum number
of wells plugged. The drone vertiport system is designed to
be sustainable, portable, and fully autonomous, powered by
solar energy, and capable of continuously supporting up to
six drones simultaneously. These drones are equipped with
advanced autonomous features, including precision landing
using QR codes (AprilTags). The vertiport capsules are auto-
mated and feature a contact-based charging system, ensuring
seamless and continuous drone operations. Future work
will focus on enhancing drone communication and path
planning algorithms, as well as optimizing the drone battery
management system, to further improve the efficiency and
effectiveness of the system in various environments.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation’s Smart and
Connected Communities (S&CC) program under grant No. CNS-2323050,
titled “SCC-PG: Sustainable Vertiports for Bringing Autonomous Drone
Swarm Inspection to Oil and Gas Industry Community.”
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