WFS

Umbilical-less Radio Telemetry for Subsea Wells

1

SubSea Technology, London13th December2007

Agenda

• About WFS

• RF propagation in seawater

• Trials and Installations

• Applications• Applications

• Summary

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About WFS

• Founded 2003– Custom comms products

– Military data links

• From late 04– Underwater RF products

& technology Data link for Typhoon (Eurofighter)

3

& technology

– 25 patent applications in UK & US

– First product launch Sept 06

– World’s only supplier

– Emerging global industry

World’s first underwater RF modem

About WFS• Products

– S1510 low bandwidth modem

– S5510 broadband modem

– RAM300 Radio Acoustic Modem

• Customers in

– Homeland Security & DefenceRadio Acoustic Modem

4

– Oil and Gas

– Environmental industries

• Awards:

– Top UK MoD Innovation Award

– Dti Award: Oil and Gas Applications

– MoD CoI: U/water RF Fence

• Experienced hi tech management team

• Privately owned

Radio Acoustic Modem

RAM 300

S1510 RF Modem

About WFS - Dti Technology Programme

• £1.1m, 2 year programme

• Commenced Jan 07

• Partners: – WFS (lead),

– Tritech Ltd (Halma plc),

– Insensys Oil & Gas Ltd (Schlumberger)

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– Insensys Oil & Gas Ltd (Schlumberger)

• 5 product developments– Dual technology RF/Acoustic modem

• Launched Sept 07

– Broadband data transfer from seismic datalogger

– Wireless connector (data+power)

– AUV docking solution (data+power)

– Pipeline & riser monitoring

RF Propagation in Seawater

• Investigated extensively by radio pioneers

– Research peaked 1950s-60s

– US & Russian ELF submarine communications @ 80 Hz.

– Most recent DoD programs stopped

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– Most recent DoD programs stopped late 90s

• Technology developments:

– Digital Signal Processing (DSP)

– antenna

• Market need:

– Deployment of unmanned vehicles

– Littoral telemetry/networks

– Underground communications

Morse

RF Propagation in Seawater

• Propagation inversely proportional to conductivity

• Difficulty– Hi: Seawater

– Med:

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– Med: • Soil, fresh water

• Ice & snow

– Lo: Air

RF Propagation in Seawater- Propagation velocity

Free space

• RF propagation velocity x15 acoustic @ 1Khz

– Low latency

– Real time control and networking8

Acoustic

RF Propagation in Seawater- Attenuation variation with frequency

Atte

nuatio

n in

dB/m

etre

1.0 S/m

0.1 S/m

0.01 S/m

10.0 S/m 4.0 S/m, Sea Water

• Attenuation increases with frequency

• @ 1Khz attenuation in seawater approx 1dB/m

• Wavelength: 300km in air; 10m in seawater9

Atte

nuatio

n in

dB/m

etre

0.001 S/m

0.0001 S/m Fresh Water

Frequency in Hz

RF Propagation in a Shallow Water

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• Trade-off between Distance & Data Rate

• Signal follows path of least resistance:

– air or seabed paths extend range

• RF signal emerging from the water/air interface tracks along the water surface

RF Propagation in Seawater- Predicted data rates and ranges

Range <1m 10m 50m 200m 2km 10km

RF in

Seawater

Up to

100mbps

100kbps 5kbps 100bps 10bps <1bps

Applications -AUV

docking

- Wireless

connectors

- ROV

comms with

Subsea

Controllers

-Wellhead

networks

- diver

comms

-telemetry

-AUV

control

-Navigation

- seabed

telemetry

- Seabed

telemetry

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connectors Controllers

- ROV /AUV

data d/load

from sensor

networks

comms -Navigation

beacons

• Assumes

- use of seabed path where distances >100m

- dispersion compensation techniques

RF Propagation in Seawater• Pros

– Crosses boundaries

• Water - air

• water-seabed

• water-ice-air

• Ground - air

– Does not need line-of-sight

– Immune to fouling, acoustic noise,

• Cons– Range: attenuation in

seawater

– Susceptible to magnetic field interference

– High water/air boundary loss if crosses in far field

– Antenna efficiency decreases at low frequency systems

– Limited design and operational experience

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– Immune to fouling, acoustic noise, aerated water & high turbidity

– Unaffected by multipath effects

– Compact and portable

– Low power consumption

– Low latency � networking

– No known affect on marine life

– Deployment flexibility

– Covert

operational experience

Trials and Installations- Environmental Monitoring

• Monitoring

– Pollution (Ysi)

– Current (Valeport)

– RDCP (Aanderas)

• Harbours• Harbours

• Littoral waters

• Mud flats

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YSI Environmental 6600multi-

parameter Sonde

Trials and Installations- World’s first U/Water to UAV Demo

• DSEI, Docklands, Sept 07

• RF transmitter located at

seabed (12m)

• Snr eng, BP CTO

participatedparticipated

• Message received via RF Rx

on UAV, displayed on LED

panel

• 5 demos over 3 days:

– audience > 600

• Part funded by MoD

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Trials and Installations - Test Tank, QinetiQ, UK

• World’s largest test

tank

• Real time control

of AUVs and

model submarinesmodel submarines

• Benefits

– Increased control

over experiments

– Reduced trials

times

– Reduced costs

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Trials and Installations - Broadband Comms, MARIN, Nl

• 100kbps RF comms to transfer data from AUVs to

above water control tower

• Wave generators make EMI noisy environment

• Installation 1Q08

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Broadband Data Link S5510-2 Marin’s Seakeeping and Manoeuvring

Applications- Shallow water Wireless Umbilical

1 .106

1 .105

1 .104

1 .103

H fo σ, Rp, 10,( )

H fo σ, Rp, 20,( )

H fo σ, Rp, 30,( )

H fo σ, Rp, 40,( )

Magnetic Field strength in A/m versus total path distance in m.

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• We have calculations to support claims of,

– 500bits/sec. for 20m through sea (4S/m) and 10km in air.

• Ongoing related applied research funded via MoD & DoD

• Retrofit telemetry to ageing coastal wellheads

• ITF application to fund trials

100 1 .103

1 .104

1 .108

1 .107

1 .10

4.7 107−

⋅

Rp

Applications- (a) Deep water Wireless Umbilicals

• Rapidly deployable wireless

telemetry link– acoustic for longer distance drops

– RF at surface to avoid need for – RF at surface to avoid need for

acoustic repeater

• Retrofit using ROVs

• Back-up to existing telemetry

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Acoustic link, shown in blue for long distance,

single hop communications. Short distance

links and through water/ air boundary done by

RF, shown in red.

Applications- (b) Deep water Wireless Umbilicals

• Hybrid Acoustic/RF networks• Hybrid Acoustic/RF networks

• RF repeater on each pipe

section

• Acoustic repeater every 500m

• Resilient:

– RF & acoustic have

independent modes of failure

• VIV monitoring

• Umbilical back-up

• Consortium proposal to GOM

operator19

Applications- Pipeline Monitoring

• Daisy chain low

b/width comms

between sensors

• Broadband data uplink • Broadband data uplink

to ROV or AUV

• Low b/width up link to

ship or UAV

• Brown field

deployment

• Joint project with

Insensys O&G20

Applications- Data collection from Shallow Water Sites

• Use UAVs to collect shallow water data or to

implement real time control

• Funded sea trial 1Q0821

Applications- Wireless Data / Data + Power Connector

• Sealed system � increased reliability

• Target performance– Data:

• 10Mbits/sec @ 0.5 m

• 100kbps @ 10m

– Power• 100W @ <10cm (long term 10kW)

• Applications:

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• Applications:– Wellhead template networking

– ROV/AUV: 4D Seismic datalogger data collection

– ROV: commissioning & trouble-shooting

– AUV: docking stations at seabed

� Long term AUV deployment

• TSB application: Shell, Fugro and MAN Turbo

Wireless Connectors

RF Sensing- U/Water Asset Protection RF Fence

• MoD Competition of Ideas

winner

• Object detection using EM

techniques.

• 18 month study, began Aug 07

Protec

ted

Asset

D

E B

C

• 18 month study, began Aug 07

• High value asset protection:– Vessels in port

– Offshore rigs

– FPSOs

• Demonstrate in laboratory and

salt-water tank 1Q09.

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A

Summary

• WFS is UK based hi tech global

leader

• Subsea RF coming of age

• Enabling technology for cost

reduction & accessing deeper

waters:

– Wireless umbilicals

– Pipeline monitoring

– 4D seismic data logger

– Wellhead networks

– ROV & AUV wireless comms

comms + power

• Environmentally friendly

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MoD Top Innovation Award

RAM300 Sea Trials, 2007

UK Restricted