The Oil and Gas industry have both a fiscal and a moral imperative to assure that underwater pipelines remain free of leaks and potentially harmful organic growth that could compromise the integrity of couplings. Preventative maintenance and inspection costs can be dramatically reduced through time lapse video surveillance. Underwater cameras focused on critical junctions can be used to identify potential leaks before they can do significant damage.

In the application illustrated below a battery powered video capture and recording system is deployed in a watertight pressure tested enclosure and captures video from cameras at regularly scheduled intervals. In between captures the system remains in a low-power sleep state.

By combining long dwell capability and video capture at fixed intervals a historical archive is created to serve as a baseline. The video is retrieved at fixed intervals during scheduled periods of routine maintenance. Off-line analysis of the video is used to identify unexpected changes to the condition of the pipeline that would have otherwise gone undetected.