Underwater gas leak detection using an autonomous underwater vehicle (robotic fish)

Gas leaks from subsea oil and gas facilities could cause significant ocean environment damage. Such leaks can cause fire and explosion, for example, a fire on the ocean surface west of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. Detecting a gas leak is critical in managing fire and explosion risks. This study proposes using autonomous underwater vehicles -robotic fish- for gas leak plume detection. The robotic fish is equipped with advance two well-known deep learning models, Faster RCNN and YOLOV4. A physical experiment system of various sizes of underwater gas leaks is used to generate the benchmark dataset. The results demonstrated the YOLOV4 model has a stronger online real-time capability. It is 43 times faster than the Faster RCNN model with the same level of accuracy. This study verifies the feasibility of integrating deep learning models with the mobile vehicle for real-time autonomous gas leak detection. This contribution will enable the development of a safe and reliable digital twin of subsea emergency management.