Successful flight trials in Nigeria for Schiebel Camcopter S-100.

The Camcopter S-100 Unmanned Air System (UAS), by Schiebel (Austria) demonstrated its capabilities to a large European oil and gas corporation during demanding trials in Rivers State, Nigeria, from 27 to 30 January 2019.

The S-100 successfully completed a number of day and night flights monitoring pipeline Rights-of-Way (Picture source: Shiebel)

The international oil and gas industry has shown increasing interest in employing UAS to effectively monitor and control oil and gas infrastructure, both onshore and offshore. Therefore, the latest flight trials with the Camcopter S-100 around the coast of Rivers State were designed to further investigate the implementation and potential advantages of UAS technology. Representatives of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, the Nigerian Air Force, the Nigerian Navy, the Nigerian Army, Kongsberg Geospatial and local UAS service provider Aerial Robotix, among others, attended the event.

The market-leading Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) Camcopter S-100 UAS offers a substantial enhancement for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance(ISR) missions in an oil and gas production environment. The S-100 successfully completed a number of day and night flights monitoring pipeline Rights-of-Way (ROW), inspecting oil and gas wellheads/facilities and performing first-line maintenance checks, including detection of leaks and fluid levels of storage tanks. The Camcopter was also able to detect various third party illegal activities on the client’s pipeline ROW. Kongsberg Geospatial’s IRIS UAS situational awareness application supported the safe conduct of this Beyond Visual Line Of Sight (BVLOS) operation.

“Monitoring and maintaining remote oil and gas facilities is a challenging and dangerous task that can derive considerable benefits and cost-savings from the use of unmanned systems” notes Hans Georg Schiebel, Chairman of the Schiebel Group. “As a proven and reliable platform, the Camcopter S-100 is perfectly suited for supporting key aspects such as infrastructure inspections, emergency response, security and surveillance.”

Schiebel’s Camcopter S-100 Unmanned Air System (UAS) is an operationally proven capability for military and civilian applications. The Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) UAS requires no prepared area or supporting equipment to enable launch and recovery. It operates by day and by night, under adverse weather conditions, with a beyond line-of-sight capability out to 200 km/108 nm, overland and sea. Its carbon fiber and titanium fuselage provides capacity for a wide range of payload/endurance combinations up to a service ceiling of 5,500 m/18,000 ft. In a typical configuration, the Camcopter S-100 carries a 34-kg/75-lbs payload up to 10 hours and is powered with AV Gas orJP-5 heavy fuel. High-definition payload imagery is transmitted to the control station in real time. In addition to its standard GPS waypoint or manual navigation, the S-100 can successfully operate in environments where GPS is not available, with missions planned and controlled via a simple point-and-click graphical user interface. The high-tech unmanned helicopter is backed by Schiebel’s customer support and training services.