High-reliability data compression and telemetry scheme for real-time logging data transmission

Abstract

Described herein are systems and techniques for improving the transmission of data up a wellbore such that wellbore operations may be performed or controlled more efficiently. When a wellbore is drilled or otherwise used, sensors may be deployed in the wellbore to measure parameters that may include borehole pressure, annular pressure, weight-on-bit, torque-on-bit, temperature, or other borehole logging data, for example. Data sensed by the sensors or interpreted from received sensor data may be sent up-hole to electronics that may reside at the surface of the Earth. Since wellbore (borehole) logging data usually have moderate levels of continuity or consistency between respective samples, differences between data samples acquired over a period of time may be expected to have smaller amplitudes/deviations than the data samples themselves. As such, data compression can be achieved by transmitting data that identifies a difference between an initial data sample and a subsequent reference data sample.