PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15923794
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-03
Publication Date: 2018-09
Patent Classification: ["250", "338500"]

Abstract:
Apparatus and methods for rapidly detecting, localizing, imaging, and quantifying leaks of natural gas and other hydrocarbon and greenhouse gases. Scanning sensors, scan patterns, and data processing algorithms enable monitoring a site to rapidly detect, localize, image, and quantify amounts and rates of hydrocarbon leaks. Multispectral short-wave infrared detectors sense non-thermal infrared radiation from natural solar or artificial illumination sources by differential absorption spectroscopy. A multispectral sensor is scanned to envelop an area of interest, detect the presence and location of a leak, and raster scan the area around the leak to create an image of the leak. The resulting absorption image related to differential spectral optical depth is color mapped to render the degree of gas absorption across the scene. Analysis of this optical depth image, with factors including known inline pressures and/or surface wind speed measurements, enable estimation of the leak rate, i.e., emission mass flux of gas.

Claim (Index 9):
A method for detecting, localizing, and imaging one or more hydrocarbon gas emissions within a physical area to be monitored with an imaging device having a multispectral sensor responsive to light in the 1.0 to 2.6 micron wavelength range, a two-dimensional scanning actuator, and a data processor, comprising:\n a. tracing, using the scanning actuator, closed optical scan paths of the line-of-sight of the imaging device around a boundary of the area for forming an enveloping optical sheath about the area and with a vertex at the multispectral sensor through which gas emissions may cross resulting from at least one of diffusion, pressure, buoyancy, and ambient wind conditions and for detecting the presence of gas emissions within the area upon detecting, by the multispectral sensor, spectral absorption characteristic of one or more hydrocarbon gases along the closed optical scan paths; b. tracing, using the scanning actuator, open optical scan paths, including lines and arcs, of the line-of-sight of the imaging device, across locations within the area boundary for localizing gas emissions within the area boundary in response to detecting spectral absorption characteristic of one or more hydrocarbon gases along the closed optical path, whereby tracing open optical scan paths subdivides the enveloping optical sheath for localizing the gas emissions within one or more subdivisions of the area; and c. tracing, using the scanning actuator, raster optical scan paths of the line-of-sight of the imaging device across at least one subdivision of the area, in response to localizing gas emissions within one or more subdivisions of the area, for generating two-dimensional multispectral imagery of the gas emissions with the multispectral sensor.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 20.0
- Percentile: 90.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.68317
- Patent Class: 250.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15598052', '14650981', '10444586', '15074840', '10927122']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.6653442085666798
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5777988358614776
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.6565896712961595
- Mean Citation Score: 240.871566
- Max Citation Score: 494.1758
- Similarity Product: 417.13037522587774

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test