GPS aided oil spill tracking and mapping system: Application to offshore petroleum industry

There are varied types and severity of marine oil spills. Authors focus on the oil spills that are results of a blowout especially in the offshore petroleum industry. Blowouts are considered as nightmare situation for oilfield workers and oil blowouts from offshore rigs are horrible disasters causing loss of human lives, oil spills causing damage to marine life and environment besides huge economics impacts. Precise information about time course or the extent of oil spill is crucial for fast and effective response. This paper describes the result of a work carried out by the authors to design and develop an autonomous offshore oil spill system that is robust, financially affordable and suitable for day and night operations. Authors propose an arrangement of anchored and floating buoys fitted with GPS (Global Posistioning System) as described in this paper for real time tracking and mapping of an oil spill. Experiments and computer simulations have been conducted to test the efficiency and working methodology of the proposed system.