US Patent Issued to Saudi Arabian Oil on Dec. 16 for "Inspecting a pipeline with an unmanned aerial vehicle" (Saudi Arabia Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,498,287, issued on Dec. 16, was assigned to Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia).

"Inspecting a pipeline with an unmanned aerial vehicle" was invented by Maher Hamed Alerwi (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia), Ghazi Salman Qahtani (Khobar, Saudi Arabia), Layan Alaeddin AlSharif (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) and Rahaf Nasser Almutairi (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A pipeline inspection system includes an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operable to travel in an airspace above a pipeline configured to transport a hydrocarbon fluid. The UAV includes sensors configured to detect a leak of the hydrocarbon fluid from the pipeline. ...