Halliburton Energy Services, Inc.

The University of Texas System

Nazli Demirer

Robert Phillip Darbe

Umut Zalluhoglu

Ketan Chimanlal Bhaidasna

Vy Pho

Julien Marck

Dongmei Chen

Jian Wu

Yang Liu

Alexander Mathew Keller

Bipin Kumar Pillai

Cili Sun

Shahin Tasoujian

Khunsa Hisham

Yuanyan Chen

He Zhang

Julien Christian Valery Marek

Kaixiao Tian

Min Wu

Tianheng Feng

Peter John Hornblower

Robert Alan Friedrich

Julien Christian Valery Marck

Fernando Costa Oliveira Chagas

Shichao Xu

Jiamin Xu

A method that may comprise disposing a bottom hole assembly into a formation, wherein the bottom hole assembly comprises a mud motor, identifying a first segmented data set for a slide mode of the mud motor, and identifying a second segmented data set for a rotate mode of the mud motor. The method may further comprise calibrating the mud motor at least in part using a Reversible Jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo (RJMCMC), wherein the RJMCMC uses at least in part the first segmented data set and the second segmented data set.

Real-time tool yield calibration of mud motor

In directional drilling, a nonlinear Delay Differential Equation (DDE) model may be used for its high precision in predicting how a borehole may be drilled according to a well plan. To address challenges associated with real-time control of a drill drilling wellbore, techniques of generalized feedback linearization, finite element concept, and zero-order hold discretization may be used to transform a nonlinear DDE model into discretized domain with a linear Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) form. Following this transformation, a novel optimization framework may be used to concurrently determine optimal control inputs and solve a linear complementarity problem (LCP). The validity of both the discretized model and the optimization strategy may be verified by comparing modeled results with real-world results. Subsequent closed-loop simulations demonstrate the ability of the proposed model predictive control to maintain alignment of a drill string with a planned well trajectory, even in the presence of disturbances and noise.

Nonlinear model predictive control for directional drilling applications

One or more sensors are positioned downhole in a wellbore of a geological formation. One or more survey directional measurements associated with the wellbore are performed and one or more continuous directional measurements associated with the wellbore are performed. A wellbore trajectory model projects a trajectory of the wellbore to respective measured depths at which at least one of the one or more survey directional measurements and one or more continuous directional measurements were performed or obtained to predict one or more directional measurements of the wellbore at those depths. One or more differences are determined between the predicted one or more directional measurements and at least one of the one or more survey directional measurements and the one or more continuous directional measurements. The wellbore trajectory model is calibrated based on the one or more differences between predicted measurements and performed measurements.

Wellbore trajectory model calibration for directional drilling

Aspects of the subject technology relate to systems and methods of controlling a drill string having a steerable bit when drilling a wellbore through a substrate. A deterministic model of a directional behavior of the drill string is developed that includes a drill string state, one or more drill parameters associated with the drill string, and one or more substrate parameters associated with the substrate. A stochastic differential model of the directional behavior of the drill string is then developed by replacing the state and each of the parameters of the deterministic model with respective probability distributions and adding feedback. The stochastic differential model is reduced to a truncated stochastic model by substituting a predetermined number of terms of a generalized polynomial chaos expansion for each probability distribution and then evaluating the expectations.

Optimal probabilistic steering control of directional drilling systems

Systems and methods of the present disclosure are directed to systems and methods for controlling a wellbore drilling apparatus where the system may include a surface controller and a downhole controller. In certain instances, control of the drilling apparatus may be transferred from the surface controller to the downhole controller. The control of the drilling apparatus may be transferred to the downhole controller as the surface control monitors operation of the drilling operation. The surface controller may also send a command that transfers control of the drilling apparatus from the downhole controller to the surface controller.

Closed loop fully autonomous directional drilling

A method may include dividing a wellplan into one or more section using a section detection algorithm, receiving a depth measurement of a drill bit or a bottom hole assembly located in a wellbore, utilizing the section detection algorithm and the depth measurement to identify a section of the wellplan from the one or more sections of the wellplan, and identifying a target based at least in part on the identified section. The method may further include determining one or more steering commands based at least in part on the target and a control algorithm and steering the bottom hole assembly to the target using the one or more steering commands.

Automated vertical-curve-lateral drilling

Aspects of the subject technology relate to systems and methods for improving mud motor trajectory controls. Systems and methods are provided for receiving control data from a mud motor trajectory controller, predefining a plurality of control modes based on the control data from the mud motor trajectory controller, achieving desired slide rotate ratios and toolface angles by solving an established objective function that mathematically represents operational preferences and system constraints for a selected control mode of the plurality of control modes, generating a modulation procedure that converts the slide-rotate ratios to a binary slide and rotate control sequence, and applying the modulation procedure to generate the binary slide and rotate control sequence.

Slide-rotate ratio mode optimization for mud motor trajectory control

Methods and compositions for estimating one or more downhole qualities of a drilling apparatus by obtaining axial acceleration data. The axial acceleration data may be acquired by measuring an axial acceleration of a bottom hole assembly. The axial acceleration may then be used to estimate one or more of a downward weight on a drill bit of the drilling apparatus or a rate of penetration of the drill bit.

Methods for estimating downhole weight on bit and rate of penetration using acceleration measurements

A well path for a directional drilling device may be updated by determining a perturbation for a new well path from a current bottom-hole assembly position to a target using the initial well plan (or any well path of reference) as a reference. An initial well plan may be determined for a directional drilling device along with a current actual borehole position of a drilling device along with other parameters such as attitude. With this, a perturbation to the well plan based on the current actual borehole position of a drilling device and a subterranean target maybe determined. Based on this perturbation an updated borehole path may be determined.

Perturbation based well path reconstruction

Current disclosure proposes calibration methodology that uses the knowledge learned from historical data and real-time data to update a simplified physics-based borehole propagation model for real time steering control of a directional drilling system. The proposed methodology updates model parameters of the simplified physics-based model in real time through a process of setting up and optimizing an objective function, which indicates the difference between the estimated trajectory and the feedback from the real-time data. Penalizing terms, which prevent the parameters from deviating drastically from the prior knowledge of the parameter, and various components of the objective function are learned from the historical data. As a result, the updated model can accurately estimate and predict the system behavior allowing an input sequence of the system to be accurately mapped to the output response.

Techniques for calibrating borehole propagation model for direction drilling in real time

A variety of methods, systems, and apparatus are disclosed, including, in one embodiment a method of steering a drilling bit including: determining at least one control command to a drilling system, wherein the control command includes a combination of one or more nominal control commands output from a feedforward controller and one or more control command error values output from a feedback controller operating in an error space; and directing the drill bit of the drilling system in the wellbore based on at least the control command to extend the wellbore towards a planned depth-based wellbore trajectory.

Error-space feedback controller for drill bit steering

A method of drilling tendency estimation including receiving, at a processor, one or more directional sensor measurements from a drilling tool disposed on a drill string, processing, at the processor, the one or more directional sensor measurements to determine an actual wellbore trajectory over a defined interval, and identifying, at the processor, a set of directional disturbance parameters by optimization of the actual trajectory of the drilling tool, steering inputs, and/or a set of pre-defined directional disturbance parameters of the drilling tool.

Autonomous directional drilling directional tendency estimation

One or more wellbore trajectories and respective control inputs are determined which meet a wellbore trajectory model, a constraint, and a wellbore length. A wellbore trajectory and respective control input from the one or more wellbore trajectories and respective control inputs are then identified which minimize a cost function associated with the performance objective. The control input associated with this wellbore trajectory are output to a drilling system for drilling a wellbore.

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Houston, TX, United States of America

Nazli Demirer