Closing the Loop in Automated Control… | Helmerich & Payne, Inc.

Drilling process automation has been a trending topic within the technical community, most recently discussed in SPE-212565-MS (Cayeux et al. 2023). Recovery control - specifically in the case of motor stalls - is not only integral to consistently completing automation control system execution, but also building confidence for the control system users and ultimate automation benefactors. Predicting, preventing, detecting, mitigating, and recovering motor stalls through automated recovery control solves an issue affecting most operators, contributing to additional bottom-hole assembly (BHA) damage and unplanned trips.

The recovery control system was designed with six major process control interfaces, two of which occur during on-bottom drilling: drilling while rotating and drilling while sliding. Each control interface is a means by which an external system can control the rig tools in a coordinated fashion, managing what control is currently active and ensuring the driller can ultimately assume control at any given time. The recovery control is customized and preconfigured with an observation window to execute the recovery process once the stall criteria has been breached while on-bottom drilling, sliding or rotating. The result is mitigated motor stalls that are consistently managed with a configurable automation system, less BHA damage, and no motor stall related unplanned trips - displaying both time and cost value.

After two years of testing the recovery control system internally, there were no undetected stalls, no false detections, and no unplanned trips due to motor stall, displaying detailed accuracy. The recovery control complements the process control, limit control, and manual control components of the automation control system to drill a stand effectively and consistently.

Read out the full tech paper here: https://www.helmerichpayne.com/resources/technical-publications/closing-the-loop-in-automated-control-systems or you can access the PDF from here: https://www.helmerichpayne.com/media/technical-publications/Recovery-Control-Closing-the-Loop-in-Automated-Control-Systems.pdf.
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