New Smart Sensor for the Improvement of Pipeline's Cleaning

In this paper we wanted to give a deep insight into the innovation process that resulted in the development of a new pipeline inspection technology. As the process from TRL 1 to TRL 9 and market took only a few years, it’s an excellent example of how to develop quickly an technology which application may save several millions of euros in pipeline maintenance procedures. The technology was conceptualized by Eni Natural Resources in 2011 and in 2019 DG Impianti Industriali was committed for the innovation process of the conceptualized technology. Being successfully reached the TRL9 in 2024 the system technology has been licensed to DG Impianti Industriali for the field deployment. Thanks to a dynamic approach of the team, composed mainly by technologists, we were able to launch the product in 2024. The inspection system consists of a physical sensor, which is linked to a PIG used for pipeline inspection, and the software suite that allows for data collection and cloud data management in a fully wireless mode. The inspection system also achieved the ATEX Zone 2 certification for usage in ATEX classified areas. The PIGs equipped with the inspection system was used extensively by Eni Natural Resources during 170 missions carried out worldwide, for around 1000 hours of cumulative field tests and a total of 3500 km of pipeline inspected. This approach was necessary to test the system in a variety of industrially relevant environments to be sure that the operation of the sensor is reliable in every kind of context. The longest mission carried out by the sensor was of 60 km, gathering any kind of information crucial for the pipeline maintenance. The instrument gathers pressure and temperature data which can be linked to specific events inside the pipeline. Also, being equipped with accelerometers, it can show the movement inside the pipeline and any kind of its perturbation. Particular interest result from Field Application of the application of the inspection system in a Eni Natural Resources’s UK field that allowed the operator to save around 5-10 million euros estimated in the next 2 years of maintenance operations. The fast track approach to the innovation process adopted by our team allowed us to significantly speedup the industrialization process, which led to the launch of the final product in just 5 years, which is remarkably fast.