In this interview with China Tower(Tianjin) Industry director Mr. Chang Yin, TowerXchange explore their award-winning AI-based solution for the smart monitoring of petroleum gas pipelines. With the help of CTC’s abundant site resource advantages, and relying on the development of AI monitoring equipment and AI cloud computing services, CTC has jointly developed an IoT-enabled innovation with Sinopec. The project delivers intelligence capabilities in many scenarios along the energy pipeline, such as third party construction around high-consequence areas, the rolling of medium-sized vehicles, violations of regulations, instances of drilling and oil theft, and the precise dispatch of police responders.
TowerXchange: Could you please introduce the background of your AI-enabled intelligent monitoring of petroleum gas pipelines project?
Mr. Chang Yin, Industry Director, China Tower(Tianjin):
Telecom tower applications in the energy industry, specifically the intelligent monitoring network of petroleum gas pipelines, relies on the abundant site resources and wide coverage advantages of China Tower Corporation (CTC). We use the video data analysis capabilities of artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing, to provide energy industry customers with an integrated monitoring and coverage solution. We offer a suite of discovery, confirmation and processing services to support scenarios such as the monitoring of high consequence areas, while combating the drilling and stealing of oil.
For example, the Tianjin Oil and Gas Pipeline intelligent monitoring project covers a total of 56 km, using 22 high points of presence to provide 24-hour uninterrupted analysis and monitoring. Leveraging artificial intelligence technology, we are able to analyse personnel, vehicles, and any construction or oil piracy around the pipeline. This enables us to realise automatic problem discovery, warning and rapid processing of integrated service solutions, which is highly valued by our customers.
The safety problems of oil and gas pipelines have been prominent for a long time, especially the phenomenon of third-party construction damage, and the drilling and stealing of oil. Traditional safety prevention and control methods have not delivered the desired results in terms of real-time and efficient monitoring, all-round coverage and protection. CTC’s energy pipeline intelligent monitoring project based on artificial intelligence has realised real-time monitoring of the surrounding environment around pipelines, making timely and reasonable predictions, and taking measures to deal with incidents, effectively endowing the pipeline with “wisdom”. This has effectively solved the long-term problems involved in the prevention and control supervision of oil and gas pipelines, and has provided strong technical support for ensuring oil and gas transportation safety and public safety.
TowerXchange: Could you please explain the specifics of this innovative AI application?
Mr. Chang Yin, Industry Director, China Tower(Tianjin):
We have been able to leverage telecom towers to give the pipeline “wisdom” by creating an AI-based petroleum gas pipeline smart monitoring solution.
Aiming at the environment around the pipeline and the business scenarios that need to be discovered, we innovated and adopted an AI in-depth learning detection model. We are using large data flow to calculate and analyse real-time behavior, build large-scale data sets, train recognition models for special scenarios, and introduce a machine-learning update mechanism to locate and respond to potential safety hazards around pipelines. Based on the scene around the pipeline, we chose customised remote day and night surveillance cameras to locate the source of the alarm, coordinate and dispatch the alarm responders to pre-defined tasks.
The ability to distinguish monitored objects, to judge abnormal behavior, and the ability to do all this in a harsh environment, are technology breakthroughs for both the telecom and energy industries.
Key features of the system include:
a. The ability to discriminate between monitored objects: Using an artificial intelligence deep learning algorithm, people and vehicles can be distinguished in the course of the camera’s rotation. The system can accurately distinguish vehicles such as trucks, forklifts, excavators, cars, buses, tankers, pickups, vans, bicycles, tricycles, motorcycles and so on.
b. The ability to judge deviant behavior: The big data analysis system will analyse any abnormal targets in the target image in real time according to the recognition results of the AI. Combining images with time factors, we are able to identify and alarm abnormal behavior of personnel and designated targets in a given location.
c. Recognition in harsh environments: We have completed a laser night vision alarm, enabled by an infrared camera at night, which can recognise targets and deviant behavior even in dense woods. For different application scenarios, particular weather conditions including rain, fog and wind can also be monitored and alarmed, so as to achieve highly efficient, uninterrupted 24-hour oil pipeline protection.
d. Monitoring suspicious vehicles or personnel lingering: The system can warn about the presence of suspicious vehicles or personnel, and give warnings of personnel penetrating areas of prevention and control. We can use number plate recognition to monitor vehicles entering areas of prevention and control, and we use thermography to recognise human bodies and cars occluded by trees.
As a result of accumulating a large number of simulated scenes, the current system’s recognition accuracy has reached 97%.
The intelligent monitoring project of Sinopec’s oil and gas pipeline is a revolution for the pipeline industry, making us a pioneer of the national and even the world pipeline industry. China Tower make full use of the advantages of the sharing economy, information technology and site resources, and has developed an intelligent monitoring solution based on all-weather protection of Sinopec oil and gas pipelines. It realises high-point monitoring, sound and light warnings, remote warning dispatch, alarming, real-time checking, site data maintenance, detection rules management, sensor management, user rights and sensor status monitoring. Together we have achieved pipeline protection through air defense, material defense, and technical defensive means, so that monitors can truly see, discover and supervise - Mr. Sun Zhaoqiang, Deputy General Manager, Sinopec Pipeline Storage and Transportation Co., Ltd.
TowerXchange: What is the significance of this AI innovation for CTC business development?
Mr. Chang Yin, Industry Director, China Tower(Tianjin):
The Sinopec oil and gas pipeline Intelligent monitoring project is a milestone achievement for CTC’s TSSAI (Trans-sector site application and information) development.
Through concepts we call “Infinite Creativity”, “Changing the Future”, and “touching people with wisdom” CTC’s energy pipeline smart monitoring project fulfills its original design intentions, displays innovative technology capabilities, and has been recognised by expert groups and industry organisations. We won the “Greatest Potential Award” and were invited to present the project at the Third World Intelligence Conference. Experts pointed out that the scheme can be rapidly adjusted to apply in many fields, such as thermal power, gas, and pipeline protection for the power industry, land and security management, and rail transport safety protection, bringing intelligent telecom towers fully into play in building smart cities.
China Tower has revolutionised monitoring and security for our petroleum gas pipeline industry partner, enabled by close industry cooperation and partnership.
