DroneBox: A Fully Automated Drone System for Surveillance Application

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology has recently improved in terms of robustness and reliability to be utilized industrially such as site patronage, monitoring and surveillance missions. On the contrary, the delayed development of competent UAV pilots and operators is slowing down operational expansion, resulting in everyday UAV usage costly and unfeasible. The fully automated and completely independent "DroneBox" will act as the drone storage and self-maintenance base for a surveillance operation with no direct human involvement. The drone will be capable of taking- off, performing missions, landing precisely, and recharging automatically while utilizing collected real-time data to perform with the safest configuration through DroneBox. When compared to the industry’s conventional method, the risk, cost, and time of surveillance operation will be reduced with the application of the DroneBox system offshore. According to realistic estimates, deploying the DroneBox system on 20 unmanned wellhead platform platforms can cut operator visits up to one-third of the trips, resulting in saving 22% fuel of crew boat vessels or up to 1.82 million USD operating cost in Artit (ART) and Great Bongkot North (GBN) wellhead platforms.