Closed surface flight pattern generation for unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) flux plane assessment of large facilities

A method comprising:

• determining, by the processor, one or more flight paths for an aerial vehicle, wherein the aerial vehicle is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), wherein the determined flight path creates a continuous surface about one or more potential gas sources of a survey site, wherein creating the continuous surface further comprises:
• converting, by the processor, a dataset into an altitude-s space;
• performing, by the processor, a triangulation on the dataset in the altitude s-space;
• and
• applying, by the processor, the performed triangulation on a Cartesian X, Y, Z space of the dataset to produce at least one of:
• a fully closed surface and a semi-closed surface.

A system comprising:

• a processor having addressable memory, wherein the processor is configured to:
• determine one or more flight paths for an aerial vehicle, wherein the determined flight path creates a continuous surface around one or more potential gas sources of a survey site;
• receive a trace gas data from one or more trace gas sensors of the aerial vehicle of the continuous surface as the aerial vehicle flies the determined one or more flight paths;
• and
• determine based on the received trace gas data whether a gas leak is present in the received survey site and a rate of the gas leak if present in the survey site;
• wherein the continuous surface is at least one of:
• a fully closed surface and a semi-closed surface.