In today's Part II of A Light Introduction to the Nvicta AI platform, we will introduce the Directional Guidance module and explain some of its capabilities. We will begin by explaining the Slide Sheets feature, which will become a core part of our Daily Reporting module in the next iteration of the platform. We will then explain the integration between Slide Sheets and Surveys, introduce the concept of Pseudo Surveys, and finish by going over the Tendency Analysis feature. Let's get started!
Slide Sheets
All directional drillers are familiar with slide sheet tables. They record on-bottom drilling activity segments and the corresponding average drilling parameters. These recordings are then used along with other off-bottom type activities such as 'building BHA' to devise Daily Activity reports. The conventional way of filling out slide sheets can be error-prone and tedious as well. The Slide Sheets feature of Nvicta AI's directional guidance package fully automates this process by automatically capturing slide and rotating sections (and taking into account squat lengths of the drillstring), filling out average values for drilling parameters, and calculating metrics such as slide efficiency and average slide toolface. Our slide detection technology has proven to work exceptionally well even in the presence of stick-slip mitigation controllers (pipe oscillation can often be confused with stick-slip mitigation due to modulation of RPM while drilling).
Survey Management
In addition to basic survey management capabilities (capturing raw surveys through WITS or external data sources, performing MCM (minimum curvature method) analysis, distance to plan calculations, and anti-collision), Nvicta's survey management module directly integrates with slide sheets to automatically calculate motor yield (instantaneous and weighted average) and rotary build and turn rates. These calculations are achieved by deriving values for slide seen and toolface seen since the last survey station. Using the BHA tendency metrics, the module provides a projection to the bit by also calculating slide ahead, rotate ahead, and toolface ahead of the sensor. While drilling, the projection to the bit is updated in real-time every 0.5 ft as the instantaneous toolface and rig state information arrive. The Survey Management module also provides a 3D tortuosity metric using this well-defined definition.
Pseudo Surveys
Nvicta's Directional Guidance optimizes the usability of live inclination and live azimuth data through the Pseudo Surveys module. Pseudo Surveys are real-time surveys calculated solely based on live inclination and live azimuth measurements. At the start of the well, the pseudo well path is initialized using the first survey station. Once live inclination and azimuth data arrive, the Pseudo Path estimator performs an MCM analysis and updates the virtual continuous well path. Each pseudo survey is plotted on our directional plot alongside the actual well path and the well plan. After a new survey measurement arrives, a post-processing operation iterates through all pseudo surveys since the last survey station and corrects the continuous well path. The Pseudo Surveys module was designed to enhance the value provided by live inclination and live azimuth data as it enables the directional driller to visualize a continuous well-path. In the case where only either live inclination or live azimuth measurements are available, the system relies on the last actual survey measurement to perform the MCM calculations for the continuous path. The data from pseudo surveys are also used to enhance the directional driller's understanding of motor yields and rotary build and turning tendencies.
BHA Tendency Analysis
The BHA tendency module provides insightful visualizations to understand the behavior of the BHA during sliding and rotary drilling sections through the use of data captured by surveys and pseudo surveys. One visualization is the radar view of build rate vs. turn rate, augmented with a color-coded scatter plot showing each individual survey and pseudo survey. The color-coding is performed using a user-defined metric such as ROP, differential pressure, or WOB. In this manner, the user can analyze the effect of various drilling parameters on the BHA tendencies while sliding or rotating. The module also summarizes the overall statistics of the drilling parameters in each quadrant that are likely to produce a positive or negative build or turn.
We hope you enjoyed learning more about some of the features of our Directional Guidance module. In the next post, we will take a closer look at the Directional Recommendations feature!
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