Gas leak detection and event selection based on spatial concentration variability and other event properties

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10877007-B2
Application number	US-201414326195-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 8, 2014
Priority date	Jul 8, 2014
Publication date	Dec 29, 2020
Grant date	Dec 29, 2020

Abstract

This work provides event selection in the context of gas leak pinpointing using mobile gas concentration and atmospheric measurements. The main idea of the present approach is to use a moving minimum to estimate background gas concentration, as opposed to the conventional use of a moving average for this background estimation.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for gas leak event detection and selection, the method comprising:
a) providing a series of gas concentration measurements c i indexed by an integer i; wherein the providing the series of gas concentration measurements c i comprises
i) performing raw gas concentration measurements at several times from a moving vehicle, wherein the raw gas concentration measurements are measurements of gas concentration at locations of the vehicle;
ii) determining the series of gas concentration measurements c i from the raw gas concentration measurements and from knowledge of position vs. time of the moving vehicle;
b) detecting peaks p i in the series of gas concentration measurements c i , wherein each peak p i has a corresponding amplitude a i ;
c) computing a moving minimum mc i given by the minimum of c j , wherein j is an index in a range i−n min +k 1 ≤j≤i+k 1 , wherein n min is a moving minimum window width, wherein k 1 is a first window offset, wherein k 1 is an integer≤n min , and wherein mc i =min([c i−n min +k 1 , c i−n min +1+k 1 , . . . , c i+k 1 ]);
d) computing a moving standard deviation σ i of mc j , wherein j is an index in a range i−n b +k 2 ≤j≤i+k 2 , wherein n b is a moving standard deviation window width, wherein k 2 is a second window offset, and wherein k 2 is an integer≤n b ;
e) performing gas leak event selection by computing a ratio R i of peak amplitude a i at peak p i to the moving standard deviation σ i of at peak p i and selecting gas leak events that have R i exceeding a predetermined threshold condition; and
f) providing selected gas leak events as an output;
wherein the performing gas leak event selection further comprises computing a width w i of the peak p i ;
wherein the predetermined threshold condition is a predetermined curve defined in a w i −R i plane.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the threshold curve is a line.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the series of gas concentration measurements c i has its points substantially equally spaced apart in position.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the width w i is normalized by a speed of the moving vehicle.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detecting peaks p i comprises identifying data points having corresponding concentrations c i such that c i−1 ≤c i and c i+1 ≤c i .

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detecting peaks p i comprises using a peak finding algorithm to identify peaks p i .

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the peak amplitude a i is provided by the peak finding algorithm.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the peak amplitude a i is determined according to a i =c i −mc i .

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the moving minimum window width n min corresponds to a spatial width in a range from 20 m to 200 m.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the moving standard deviation window width n b corresponds to a spatial width in a range from 50 m to 500 m.

Assignees

• Picarro Inc

Inventors

• Steele David
• Crosson Eric R
• Tan Sze Meng

Classifications

• G01M3/22

  for pipes, cables or tubes; for pipe joints or seals; for valves; {for welds; for containers, e.g. radiators} · CPC title

• G01N33/0004 Primary

  Gaseous mixtures, e.g. polluted air · CPC title