SPIRo

Enviro-AI

SPIRo

AI-Powered Bio-Inspired Pneumatic Soft Robotic Inspection System with Multimodal Ensemble Learning for Real-Time Gas Pipeline Health Monitoring

Saratoga, CA, USA

United States

For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models

Infrastructure is deeply ingrained in every aspect of human life, ensuring populations' safety and sustaining countries' economies globally. Unfortunately, today’s infrastructure - including bridges, tunnels, and pipelines - is highly susceptible to issues and failures as it degrades, often resulting in billions of dollars of damage, severe and critical environmental contamination, and the loss of life. Among these critical systems, gas pipelines stand out as particularly important as nearly 29.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are transported through around 3 million miles of pipelines annually in the US. However, pipeline leaks are both frequent and dangerous. In the U.S. alone, a significant leak is reported every 40 hours, with smaller fugitive leaks often going undetected and unreported. Fugitive pipeline leaks release nearly six million tons of methane annually, a gas which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide and accounts for a third of the world’s global warming due to greenhouse emissions. Pipeline incidents have also cost operators billions of dollars and endangered thousands of lives. Therefore, early detection of gas infrastructure leaks is an efficient and effective way to reduce methane emissions and global warming, and protect public safety.

To address this challenge, we designed SPIRo, a cutting-edge AI-powered soft robotic system designed for real-time methane leak detection in upstream pipeline distribution networks. Combining bio-inspired soft robotics with advanced machine learning, SPIRo offers unparalleled flexibility, adaptability, high accuracy, and cost-efficiency, with the robot being nine times more accessible than optical imaging cameras. SPIRo has the following advantages over the existing solutions: 1) Non-intrusive operation: SPIRo is an out-of-pipe robot, and won’t disturb the normal operation of the pipelines. 2) Compact and adaptable design: its flexible and scalable structure allows SPIRo to inspect complex pipeline structures and tight spaces. 3) Underground and night operation: With a built-in thermal camera and gas sensors and compact size, SPIRO can operate and detect leaks in underground pipelines where 80% of the infrastructure is located, and continue to operate at night. 4) Advanced data analysis in real-time: SPIRo with an advanced lightweight machine learning architecture working with multiple modes of data - thermal imaging and gas sensor data - can detect leaks in real-time with high redundancy and accuracy. 5) Proven performance: SPIRo has successfully gone through field testing at the METEC lab of Colorado State University, achieving 95% detection accuracy.

Overall, our innovation seeks to detect methane leaks with high reliability and accuracy. Each SPIRo robot can cover 300 miles of pipeline per year; 4300 robots will cover all the pipelines in the U.S. in one year, which may detect up to 85% of fugitive leaks and reduce methane emissions by over 6 million tons annually. One SPIRo system can wirelessly accommodate 6-8 robots working in real-time simultaneously, enlarging the coverage by 6-8 times under the same time span and without human intervention. SPIRo has the potential to prevent millions of tons of super-pollutants from reaching the atmosphere while saving thousands of lives by constantly being on the lookout for dangers. With timely detection, it can help with preventing gas explosions to prevent causality and damage. With SPIRo automatic detection, it can also help workers doing “human inspection” in hazard environment. The front line workers can be saved from safety issues.