I-Corps: An integrated wide-area unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aeromagnetic survey system targeting orphaned oil and gas wells

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响和商业潜力是开发一种能够准确检测、评估和封堵甲烷排放孤立油气井的系统。这一补救措施每年将有效减少相当于12.5万辆汽车上路，使纽约更接近其到2050年实现净零碳排放的宏伟目标。除了环境效益外，准确确定目前未知井的位置将有助于随后在新建设和基础设施改善受到未标记井位严重阻碍的地区进行经济再开发。此外，预计随着无人机系统平台被广泛应用于多个行业的地球物理测量工具包，该技术将扩展到未爆弹药探测、地质测绘、矿产勘探和埋藏基础设施分析等领域，提供额外的航空磁测量解决方案。I-Corps项目的基础是开发基于自动化广域无人机（UAV）的地球物理调查系统，该系统每天扫描数百英亩的土地，并在复杂地形和茂密植被中全年准确定位废弃油气井。虽然无人机系统已经获得了认可，客户需求在多个领域有所增加，但它们在自动地球物理调查中的应用仍然相对有限。该技术允许无人机获取、处理、解释和绘制数据集，并向利益相关者提供可操作的地图，从而允许后续的地面验证、分类和修复井的优先级。此外，该技术还包括设计一种基于无人机的自动航磁测量系统，用于快速评估大面积未标记、废弃油气井的存在。与环境监管机构密切合作进行的现场试验表明，自动化无人机航磁测量比地面和有人驾驶的航磁测量更有效；这些调查解决了在检测和绘制孤立和废弃油气井方面的关键技术差距。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a system capable of accurately detecting, assessing, and plugging methane-emitting orphaned oil and gas wells. This remediation would effectively remove the equivalent of 125,000 cars off the road annually, allowing New York to come closer to its ambitious goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In addition to the environmental benefits of this effort, accurately identifying locations of presently unknown wells would allow for subsequent economic redevelopment in areas where new construction and infrastructure improvement are significantly impeded by the presence of unmarked well sites. In addition, it is anticipated that as unmanned aircraft system platforms are adopted as part of geophysical survey toolkits across multiple industries, the proposed technology will expand to offer additional aeromagnetic survey solutions in the fields of unexploded ordnance detection, geological mapping, mineral exploration, and buried infrastructure analysis.This I-Corps project is based on the development of an automated wide-area unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based geophysical survey system that scans hundreds of acres a day and accurately locates abandoned oil and gas wells year-round in difficult terrains and dense vegetation. While UAV systems have gained recognition and customer demand across multiple sectors has increased, their use in automated geophysical surveys has remained relatively limited. The proposed technology allows the UAVs to acquire, process, interpret, and map datasets, delivering actionable maps to stakeholders that allow subsequent ground verification, classification, and prioritization of wells for remediation. In addition, the technology includes the design of an automated UAV-based aeromagnetic survey system for rapid assessment of large geographical areas for presence of unmarked, abandoned oil and gas wells. Field trials, conducted in close collaboration with environmental regulators, demonstrated that automated UAV aeromagnetic surveys are more efficient than both terrestrial and piloted aeromagnetic surveys; These surveys address a critical technological gap in the effort to detect and map orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.