Patent ID: 9651190
Date: 2017-05-16
CPC Classifications: B08B,F16K,F16L,G01L

Claim:
1. A method of launching a pipeline pig, the method being executed by a set of computer executable instructions stored on non-transitory computer readable medium and executed by a microprocessor, the method comprising the steps of: querying a mainline bypass valve indicator, a kicker valve indicator, and an isolation valve indicator; determining, using indicator data from the valve indicators, a current state of each of the valves, the current state being in a range of fully opened to fully closed; sending a request to the microprocessor to change the current state of one or more of the valves to a new state, the new state being different than the current state and in a range of fully opened to fully closed; determining, using the microprocessor and the current state of valves left unchanged and the new state of valves to be changed, an effect on product flow in a mainline, the effect being one of increasing the product flow or decreasing the product flow; denying the request if the product flow associated with the valves left unchanged is within a predetermined range; and modulating the one or more valves to the new state if the product flow associated with the valves left unchanged is outside the predetermined range; launching the pipeline pig into the mainline.