Surface real-time processing of downhole data

• US 20050194182A1
• Filed: 03/03/2004
• Published: 09/08/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Halliburton Energy Services Incorporated (Halliburton Company)
• Original Assignee: Halliburton Energy Services Incorporated (Halliburton Company)
• Inventors: Gleitman, Daniel D., Rodney, Paul F., Dudley, James H.
• Granted Patent: US 7,999,695 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 175/24
• CPC Class Codes: E21B 47/12 Means for transmitting measuring-signals or control signals from the well to the surface, or from the surface to the well, e.g. for logging while drilling

Abstract

A method and apparatus for controlling oil well drilling equipment is disclosed. One or more sensors are distributed in the oil well drilling equipment. Each sensor produces a signal. A surface processor coupled to the one or more sensors via a high speed communications medium receives the signals from the one or more sensors via the high speed communications medium. The surface processor is situated on or near the earth'"'"'s surface. The surface processor includes a program to process the received signals and to produce one or more control signals. The system includes one or more controllable elements distributed in the oil well drilling equipment. The one or more controllable elements respond to the one or more control signals.

Claims

1. A system for controlling oil well drilling equipment, including:

one or more sensors distributed in the oil well drilling equipment, each sensor to produce a signal;

a surface processor coupled to the one or more sensors via a high speed communications medium to receive the signals from the one or more sensors via the high speed communications medium;

the surface processor situated on or near the earth'"'"'s surface, the surface processor including a program to process the received signals and to produce one or more control signals; and

one or more controllable elements distributed in the oil well drilling equipment, the one or more controllable elements to respond to the one or more control signals.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the surface processor processes the received signals in real time.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the surface processor is locally disposed to the one or more sensors.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the surface processor is remotely disposed to the one or more sensors.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein controllable elements are responsive to control signals in real time.

6. The system of claim 1 where:

the high speed communications medium has a data transfer rate that is greater than that provided by at least one of mud telemetry, acoustic telemetry, and electromagnetic telemetry.

7. The system of claim 1 where:

the high speed communications medium has a data transfer rate that is greater than or equal to 1000 bits per second.

8. The system of claim 1 where:

the sensors include downhole sensors and surface sensors.

9. The system of claim 8 where the oil well drilling equipment includes a drill string and where:

the downhole sensors are distributed along the drill string.

10. The system of claim 1 where:

the controllable elements include downhole controllable elements and surface controllable elements.

11. The system of claim 10 where the oil well drilling equipment includes a drill string and where:

the downhole controllable elements are distributed along the drill string.

12. The system of claim 1 where:

the sensors include downhole sensors and surface sensors;

the controllable elements include downhole controllable elements and surface controllable elements;

the high speed communications medium includes;

a down-hole high speed communications medium coupled to the downhole sensors and the downhole controllable elements; and

a surface high speed communications medium coupled to the surface sensors and the surface controllable elements.

13. The system of claim 1 further including:

an additional sensor indirectly coupled to the communications system by relay.

14. The system of claim 1 where:

the signals carried by the high speed communications medium to and from the sensors and the controllable elements have one or more of the following communications protocols;

Manchester encoding, Discrete Multitone, TCP, TCP/IP, UDP, and VDSL CDMA.

15. The system of claim 1 where:

the high speed communications medium includes a separate communications channel for each of the sensors and each of the controllable elements.

16. The system of claim 1 where:

the high speed communications medium includes;

one or more busses, each buss being connected to one or more sensors and controllable elements; and

an arbitration element for each bus to arbitrate control of that bus among the sensors and controllable elements connected to that bus.

17. The system of claim 1 where the program includes processing together of data from a plurality of sensors.

18. The system of claim 17 where such processing includes joint inversion of at least a portion of such data.

19. A system for controlling logging while drilling, including:

a plurality of downhole sensor modules distributed along a portion of a drill string and responsive to a characteristic of the formation in the vicinity of the drill string, each sensor module to produce a sensor signal;

a surface processor, coupled to the downhole sensor modules, the surface processor to receive sensor signals from the plurality of downhole sensor modules;

a program stored on a computer-readable media, the program when executed on the surface processor;

processes the received sensor signals to determine the characteristic and to identify changes to be made in the operation of the downhole sensor modules to adjust the measuring of the characteristic; and

generates the signals to transmit to the downhole sensor modules to reflect the changes to be made in the operation of the downhole sensor modules.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein the sensor signals from said plurality of downhole sensor modules are processed together to determine said characteristic.

21. The system of claim 19 wherein said plurality of downhole sensor modules form an array.

22. The system of claim 19 wherein said adjusting relates to a sensor energy source parameter.

23. The system of claim 22 where said parameter being one of source power, frequency, voltage, and current.

24. The system of claim 19 wherein said adjusting relates to a sensor acquisition attribute.

25. The system of claim 24 wherein said acquisition attribute relates to one of filter setting, dynamic range, amplification, attenuation, resolution, time window or data point count for acquisition, data rate for acquisition, averaging, or synchronicity of data acquisition with a related parameter.

26. The system of claim 19 wherein said adjusting relates to a parameter regarding the communication of data from a sensor module.

27. The system of claim 19 wherein the processor processes the received sensor signals to determine the characteristic in real time.

28. The system of claim 19 wherein the processor generates the signals to transmit to the downhole sensor modules in real time.

29. The system of claim 19 further including:

a communications media, coupled to the downhole sensor modules and the surface processor, to carry the sensor signals from the downhole sensor modules to the surface processor.

30. The system of claim 19 further including:

a plurality of downhole controllable element modules, which, when distributed along a portion of a drill string, can excite the formation in the vicinity of the drill string to exhibit the characteristic, each controllable element module being responsive to a control signal;

the program being further capable of;

processing in real time the received sensor signals to determine the characteristic and to identify changes that should be made in the operation of the downhole controllable element modules to better measure the characteristic;

generating in real time the control signals to transmit to the downhole controllable element modules to reflect the changes that should be made in the operation of the downhole controllable element modules.

31. A system for controlling logging while drilling, including:

a plurality of downhole sensor modules, which, when distributed along a portion of a drill string and treated as an array, identifies a characteristic of formation in the vicinity of the drill string, each sensor module to produce a sensor signal;

a plurality of downhole controllable element modules, which, when distributed along a portion of a drill string, can excite the formation in the vicinity of the drill string to exhibit the characteristic, each controllable element module being responsive to a control signal;

a surface processor, coupled to the downhole sensor modules and the downhole controllable element modules, the surface processor to receive sensor signals from the plurality of downhole sensor modules and to generate the control signals for the controllable element modules;

a program stored on a computer-readable media, the program when executed on the surface processor;

processes in real time the received sensor signals to determine the characteristic and to identify changes to be made in the operation of the downhole sensor modules to better measure the characteristic; and

generates in real time the control signals to transmit to the downhole controllable element modules to reflect the changes to be made in the operation of the downhole controllable element modules.

32. The system of claim 31 further including:

a communications media, coupled to the downhole sensor modules and the surface processor, to carry the sensor signals from the downhole sensor modules to the surface processor.

33. An oil well drilling system for drilling an oil well from the surface into a borehole, the system including:

a drill string;

one or more powerable elements distributed along the drill string;

a power source, the power source distributing power to the powerable elements.

34. The system of claim 33 where the powerable elements include sensor modules and controllable element modules.

35. The system of claim 33 in which the power source derives its energy from mud flow.

36. The system of claim 33 in which the power source derives its energy from mud pressure.

37. The system of claim 33 where the power source includes one or more batteries.

38. The system of claim 33 where the power source includes one or more alternators.

39. The system of claim 33 where the power source is disposed near the surface.

40. The system of claim 33 where the power source is disposed in the borehole.

41. The system of claim 33 where the power source is distributed along the drill string.

42. The system of claim 33 where the power source is distributed along the drill string at locations at or near the locations of a subset of the one or more powerable elements.

43. The system of claim 33 wherein the one or more powerable elements distributed along the drill string are coupled to a processor disposed at the surface.

44. A method for controlling oil well drilling equipment, comprising:

receiving a signal from a sensor disposed on an oil well drilling equipment disposed in a borehole;

processing the received signal at a surface processor disposed on or near the earth'"'"'s surface;

generating a control signal to control a controllable element disposed on the oil well drilling equipment; and

sending the control signal to the controllable element.

45. The method of claim 44 where sending comprises:

relaying the control signal through another controllable element.

46. A method for controlling oil well drilling equipment, comprising:

sending a signal from a sensor disposed on an oil well drilling equipment disposed in a borehole to a surface processor; and

receiving from the surface processor a control signal, said control signal generated after processing the signal by the surface processor, said surface processor disposed on or near the earth'"'"'s surface.

47. The method of claim 46 where sending comprises:

relaying the signal through another sensor disposed on the oil well drilling equipment.

48. A system for data acquisition and control with wired drill pipe providing a high speed communication media including:

one or more sensor modules able to produce a sensor signal indicative of at least one of, the formation being drilled and the drilling process, each of the one or more sensor modules having an operation and an interface to the communication media operable using a communications protocol;

a microcontroller associated with each sensor module to control at least one of the interface of that sensor module to the communication media and the operation of that sensor;

an ADC associated with at least one of the sensor modules to convert that sensor module'"'"'s sensor signal from an analog signal to a digital signal; and

a surface processor to process the digital signal from one or more of the sensor modules.

49. The system of claim 48 where:

the communications protocol is selected from one of the following;

Manchester, Discrete Multitone, and VDSL CDMA.

50. The system of claim 48 where:

the communications protocol is operable at a rate of at least 1000 bits per second.

51. The system of claim 48 where:

the surface processor processes the data in real time.

52. The system of claim 48 where:

the surface processor to issue commands to one or more of the sensor modules.

53. A method for data acquisition and control with wired drill pipe providing a high speed communication media comprising:

providing one or more sensor modules able to provide data indicative of the formation being drilled or the drilling process;

providing a surface processor;

said sensor module communicating, at high speed, data related to said formation or drilling process to said surface processor;

said surface processor receiving said data;

a control action being taken responsive to said data received to affect one of said drilling process or said data acquisition.

54. The method of claim 53 where:

receiving includes processing the received data.

55. The method of claim 53 where:

processing includes performing a joint inversion of data from multiple sensors.

56. A system for data acquisition and control for use with drilling equipment disposed in a borehole and a high speed communication media providing high speed communications throughout the drilling equipment, the system including:

essential electronic elements, which must be disposed in the borehole with the drilling equipment;

non-essential electronic elements, which, because of the presence of the high speed communications media, may be disposed in the borehole or outside the borehole;

the essential electronic elements being disposed in the borehole; and

the non-essential electronic elements being disposed outside the borehole.

57. The system of claim 56 where:

at least some of the essential electronic elements are built to a standard.

58. The system of claim 56 where:

the essential electronic elements have a function that must be performed in the borehole; and

each essential electronic element includes only those parts necessary to perform the function.

59. The system of claim 56 where:

the non-essential electronic components include a real-time processor.

60. The system of claim 56 where:

the essential electronic components include a sensor.

61. The system of claim 56 where:

the essential electronic elements communicate via a communications media; and

the essential electronic elements include an interface to the communications media.