New*** Pipeline Protection Services
Innovative pipeline protection solutions that combat third-party interference by ensuring rapid incident detection, classification, localization and response to threats.
Leakage from a damaged pipeline as a result of a security breach can have a devastating environmental and economic impact, made worse the longer it takes to detect and rectify. On occasion it can take pipeline operators days to precisely identify the location of the leak. Given the physical extent of a typical pipeline, conventional observational patrols, whilst effective around their immediate location, cannot cost effectively maintain watch over the hundreds of kilometers of pipeline that often exist in typical national or cross-border pipeline infrastructure.
thunder provides pipeline operators with tailored combinations of physical and technology-based security systems, which taken together, serve to provide early warning, deterrence and denial of threats that impact onshore and offshore pipeline security and safety.
thunder offers technology solutions for long linear asset protection that include distributed acoustic sensor arrays, long-range day-night all weather electro-optic camera systems, unattended ground sensors and unmanned aerial systems. These technologies may be combined in such a way as to provide effective and efficient security layers: with certain sensors focused on detecting and geo-locating potential threats, before cueing or handing over to other classification-based sensors to enable positive target identification.
The key components of our sensor solutions for Pipeline Protection are as follows:
Distributed acoustic sensor arrays:
Converts a buried fiber-optic cable into a highly effective Distributed Acoustic Sensor (DAS) array where each 10m section of the fiber acts like an acoustic microphone capable of picking up sound via ground vibrations. The system can Detect, Locate, Classify and Alert on activity along the entire length of the cable. It offers a cost-effective method for monitoring activity over long-distance linear assets, and provides automated around-the-clock monitoring.
Unattended Ground Sensors (UGS):
Employed to provide protection at key vulnerability points or in a networked configuration to provide wider-area coverage. UGS sensors include PIR, acoustic and seismic detection modalities.
They can often be placed semi-covertly and / or in regions that have little power or support infrastructure.
Long-range day-night-all-weather (DNAW) electro-optic systems:
Linked to a detection system, these pan-tilt-zoom cameras can be automatically cued onto detected targets of interest along pipeline key vulnerability points in order to help with threat classification.
Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS):
As pipelines and other such linear assets are often very long (even up to several thousand kilometers in length in certain cases) it is often difficult to get cost-effective camera coverage along the entire length in order to classify alerts as either "threats" or "benign". In this case, employing a simple-to-fly UAS with a DNAW camera payload can enable security personal to get “eyes-on-target” very quickly: even many kilometers away from manned check-points.
This deployment of thunder suite of linear asset protection technologies offers security solutions that are cost-effective and resilient over large distances: making the systems a crucial part of any pipeline integrity management plan whilst reducing the reliance on and expense of manned security.
