Dow enhances site security with drones, reduces risk and boosts efficiency

In an age where hyperbole dominates, a straightforward approach can be refreshing.

Dow Senior Robotics Engineer and Capital Projects Manager, Catherine Tea, said simply and matter-of-factly, "Every day we have multiple rounds of people going out to check our sites, making sure no doors are left open, no breaches and no suspicious activity brewing."

While crucial, this level of scrutiny presents its own challenges, particularly in harsh climates like Texas, where relentless summer heat makes security checks physically demanding. To enhance security and efficiency, Dow utilizes drones, an increasingly valuable tool that mitigates risks like heat fatigue and extends security coverage.

In order to properly secure its "miles upon miles of fence line," Tea said, Dow must continuously inspect areas that are time consuming and labor intensive to access.

To address those potential points of breach in the company’s security, Dow relies on an increasingly popular tool in its current security arsenal.

"Our aviation teams fly drones over those areas," Tea said in a presentation at the Energy Drones and Robotics Summit in The Woodlands, Texas. "Already we can see the potential benefits of using drones, such as eliminating risk of heat fatigue and stroke, expanded security coverage and increased efficiency."

Taking the next step to make those drones autonomous, "you decrease the risk of issues caused by human error and increase repeatability," Tea explained, adding thermal to those capabilities, as well.

"There are patrol cost opportunities, risk avoidance and mitigation values, emergency and security response and wide area intrusion detection," she said.

Summarizing these details, Tea said drones "allow for improved coverage to cover large areas more efficiently than human patrols, provide the opportunity to have real-time video feeds and alerts and [is more cost-effective] compared to traditional security methods. That’s a really big one."

Beyond drones providing "an opportunity cost, and also a reduced cost of labor," drones also add "capabilities such as night vision, thermal imagery, observable avoidance/threat, neutralization and integration with existing security systems," Tea said. "They all bolster the use case for using autonomous drones for security."

The insights gained from using drones, while undeniably valuable, have no more impact than the value of Dow’s learning from mistakes made on the road to adopting drone technology.

Tea elaborated on one particular, early case study that occurred when Dow used a drone for its security rounds in Louisiana.

"It failed because the parachute failed to deploy," Tea admitted.

For set up and training for this exercise, Dow "spent the money and the calories" to set up the box connectivity, run drills and create and enforce safety protocols.

"This took months," Tea recalled. "We tried to implement multiple layers of protection because this was our first attempt, and critical failure. The drone fell out of the sky over a parking lot."

Fortunately, Tea said, no human or vehicle damage occurred as a result of the drone dropping.

A root cause analysis and investigation revealed valuable learnings, Tea said.

"The parachute didn’t deploy because the drone didn’t have enough altitude. We learned that we needed to add multiple layers of protection" — one of which included an ASTM certified parachute fly-over, in which a drone flies over highly populated areas.

"Dow’s unmanned aircraft system standard requires a pilot and a visual observer," Tea said, adding that many third parties don’t view this standard as a requirement. "Dow has added this as risk mitigation."

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