Identifying Lightweight Sensors to Use in Drone-Based Emissions Monitoring Technology

Our Client & Their Goals

Our Client, a service provider in the oil & gas sector, wanted to expand their emissions monitoring portfolio to include more innovative technologies. Emission monitoring equipment currently used in the oil & gas sector is effective, but it requires set up time and calibration, and must be manually transported between each monitoring site.

Our Client believed that emissions monitoring solutions that are mounted on drones would offer many benefits to their sector, but they needed to find lightweight sensor technology for this application. They also wanted to consider other drone-based monitoring services that they could develop with other types of sensors. Their goal was to identify all applications in their industry where drone-mounted monitoring equipment would have the greatest competitive advantage. 

Since our Client had no experience with emissions monitoring sensor technology, they asked us to help them achieve their goal by analysing the landscape of relevant drone-mountable late-stage sensor technology.

CamIn's Solution

We assembled a project team by selecting three experts to help us research our Client’s topic and find solutions that would achieve their goals. Two of our experts had backgrounds in sensor technologies used for emissions monitoring. They helped us determine the most promising solutions for our Client’s target applications. Our third was an expert in pipeline monitoring technologies and practices used in the oil & gas industry. This expert would help us identify the benefits that innovative drone-based monitoring applications could provide to potential customers in the oil & gas sector.

First, our emissions monitoring sensor experts worked with us to produce a comprehensive landscape of relevant drone-mountable sensor technologies, considering both existing solutions and those still under development. They also used their expertise to help us develop a detailed forecast of likely future developments related to the technologies we investigated. Based on this development roadmap, our team was able to identify best technologies that are drone-mountable and could provide solutions for our Client’s target application.

Then our pipeline monitoring expert investigated other potential drone-based monitoring applications based on the sensor capabilities we identified in our technology landscape and forecast. Within each of eight application areas, our expert determined the two applications where drone-mounted emissions monitoring would have the greatest competitive advantage. Our expert also considered the broader value of these applications, since several would serve as effective and valuable solutions in multiple industries.

Our experts then analysed the status of the competitive space surrounding the selected applications to identify potential barriers to entry in specific markets and any existing competition.

Based on our assessment, the applications we identified represented suitable opportunities for our Client to pursue, based on low levels of competition and an evident desire for drone-based monitoring solutions.

Our technology landscape and forecast, combined with our straightforward assessment of suitable applications for drone-based monitoring, helped our Client avoid pursuing infeasible applications or highly competitive application areas.

The Impact

Our technology landscape and forecast, combined with our straightforward assessment of suitable applications for drone-based monitoring, helped our Client avoid pursuing infeasible applications or highly competitive application areas. As a result of our work, our Client was able to efficiently identify new business opportunities, and they are now pursuing new solutions based on our work together.

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