Gas pipeline sensors 850m under sea

London -- Subsea instrument specialist Naxys AS of Norway has deployed a real-time monitoring system to analyse vibrations that can cause pipeline leaks or ruptures 850m below the waves for a gas field off the Norwegian coast.

Naxys developed a network of sensors in the Ormen Lange gas field with ultrasonics synchronization of its multiple modules. The system is designed to provide high-speed data collection, fast interrupt response, a multi-threaded deterministic application and can also sleep for hours at a time. The sensors employ Schmid Engineering's ZMobile – a platform based on National Instruments’ LabVIEW Embedded Module for ADI Blackfin Processors.

“The Ormen Lange pipeline monitoring system needed a solution that could operate in harsh conditions for long periods of time, which placed the highest demands on software and hardware reliability, in-program error handling and efficient energy management,” said Harald Månum, senior engineer at Naxys.

“The combination of LabVIEW and ADI Blackfin processors delivered the stability, versatility, performance and battery life we needed to meet both the time-to-market and quality requirements,” Månum commented.