Collection and processing of environmental information in oil and gas production areas and solving other applied problems using active search methods (Review article)

The methods of monitoring the environmental situation as well as the problems of solving related applied environmental and resource problems in hard-to-reach areas of oil and gas production and also in other sectors of the national economy using unmanned aerial vehicles, are investigated. The methods of studying the types and thicknesses of the layers of the underlying surface by probing them with electromagnetic pulses of the radiofrequency range and gamma radiation are considered. Based on the existing theoretical dependencies of the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with the Earth's surface, diagrams of the passage of electromagnetic waves in the decimeter and centimeter ranges through various landscape structures (snow-ice-water-frozen soil) are presented. It is shown that the use of gamma radiation makes it possible to solve the problem of determining the effective altitude of an aircraft during environmental monitoring due to the high energy of photon radiation and albedo from various surfaces including snow cover. A method for calculating the pollutant content on the underlying surface with a given probability of its reliable detection is presented. It is noted that the reliability of the readings of measuring instruments is significantly influenced by their geometric location on the transport platform. It is shown that the proposed solution is advisable to implement using two unmanned aerial vehicles or as mall-sized unmanned airship. Based on the review, the composition of the technical means of the complex for recognizing the types and thicknesses of layers of contamination of the underlying surface is proposed. A possible methodology for assessing the environmental situation is presented. The results of the work can be used in conducting environmental exploration of infrastructure used for transporting oil and gas resources in conditions of difficult access to it as well as for solving similar military-applied and engineering-construction tasks. At the same time, for the first time, the joint use of the radio frequency range of electromagnetic waves and gamma radiation was proposed. The radio frequency range makes it possible to study the structure of the landscape, and gamma radiation from backscattered ionizing radiation is a type of pollutant, as well as to ensure high accuracy in measuring the distance from the module to the upper layer of the underlying surface.