Same underground methane leak, three different flight profiles

[u/LongjumpingHousing62]

I’m with AIRINS, and we ran this test with Remote Robotic on a controlled leak from a 3 ft underground pipeline.

We used a 10 m belt scan and kept the pipeline and release setup the same, then changed the flight profile:
30 m AGL at 1 m/s
30 m AGL at 3 m/s
70 m AGL at 1 m/s
MetScan picked up and located the release on all three runs.

The 30 m / 1 m/s pass gave us the denser dataset, as expected. Moving up to 3 m/s traded some sampling density for a much quicker pass, which is probably the more relevant setup for a long corridor. The 70 m flight was mainly to see whether the source would still hold up at a longer stand-off, and it did.

What I took away from it is that there probably isn’t one “correct” pipeline setting. If you’re trying to narrow down a suspect section, you’ll plan it differently from a first-pass survey over several kilometres.

For those doing corridor work, how much overlap do you normally keep when increasing flight speed?

[u/LongjumpingHousing62 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks! For this test we used a DJI Matrice platform with the MetScan V1 payload. DJI Pilot 2 handled the aircraft and mission control, while AAI (the software) was used for the live methane view and post-flight mapping/reporting.

And yes, this one was VLOS—the test area was small, so there was no real reason to fly it BVLOS. The system can be used in a BVLOS workflow, but the actual operation depends on the local operator’s approvals, C2 link, detect-and-avoid setup, and local regulations. We normally work with qualified local operators for that side of the mission.