Providence Photonics, LLC products

It has been a long-standing technological challenge to monitor the combustion efficiency of industrial flares. Because a flare combusts waste gases in open air, conventional emission monitoring instruments cannot be utilized. The current practice is to monitor flow and composition of gases sent to the flare and assume combustion efficiency based on these indirect measurements (surrogate parameters). Recent studies have shown that these indirect methods have significant uncertainties, resulting in under- or over-regulating affected facilities.

Providence has developed two Quantitative Optical Gas Imaging (qOGI) products, QL100™ and QL320™. Both products are add-on devices to IR camera models GF320 and GFx320 manufactured by FLIR Systems, Inc. These products allow users who have already invested in a GF320 or GFx320 camera to quantify leak rates in pounds per hour or liters per minute. The Model QL100™ was the first qOGI product and it was launched in 2016. It has gone through multiple field evaluation tests with favorable results. The QL100™ requires a procedure called “synchronization” to be performed by Providence Photonics to “calibrate” the responses between a specific camera and the QL100™. The QL320™ is a latest model and no longer requires synchronization. Instead the QL320™ utilizes the thermal calibration embedded in the GF320 or GFx320 camera.

Through a collaborative effort with Exxon Mobil, Providence Photonics has developed the IntelliRed™ autonomous gas leak detection system. The system is designed primarily for process safety applications, but can be used for environmental monitoring and product loss prevention.  An IntelliRed™ system includes one or more fixed IR cameras connected to a computer where a sophisticated gas plume recognition algorithm resides. The algorithm constantly processes the images generated by the IR camera, filters out non-gas plume objects or other changes in the scene, and singles out gas plumes that may be present in the scene. When gas plumes are detected, the system automatically sends an alert to designated personnel.