Field Assessment of Camera Based Drilling Dynamics

Surface data measurement and analysis are an established mean of detecting drillstring low-frequency torsional vibration or stick-slip. The industry has also developed models that link surface torque and downhole drill bit rotational speed. Cameras provide an alternative noninvasive approach to existing wired/wireless sensors used to gather such surface data. The results of a preliminary field assessment of drilling dynamics utilizing camera-based drillstring monitoring are presented in this work. Detection and timing of events from the video are performed using computer vision techniques and object detection algorithms. A real-time interest point tracker utilizing homography estimation and sparse optical flow point tracking is deployed. We use a fully convolutional deep neural network trained to detect interest points and compute their accompanying descriptors. The detected points and descriptors are matched across video sequences and used for drillstring rotation detection and speed estimation. When the drillstring's vibration is invisible to the naked eye, the point tracking algorithm is preceded with a motion amplification function based on another deep convolutional neural network. We have clearly demonstrated the potential of camera-based noninvasive approaches to surface drillstring dynamics data acquisition and analysis. Through the application of real-time object detection algorithms on rig video feed, surface events were detected and timed. We were also able to estimate drillstring rotary speed and motion profile. Torsional drillstring modes can be identified and correlated with drilling parameters and bottomhole assembly design. A novel vibration array sensing approach based on a multi-point tracking algorithm is also proposed. A vibration threshold setting was utilized to enable an additional motion amplification function providing seamless assessment for multi-scale vibration measurement. Cameras were typically devices to acquire images/videos for offline automated assessment (recently) or online manual monitoring (mainly), this work has shown how fog/edge computing makes it possible for these cameras to be "conscious" and "intelligent," hence play a critical role in automation/digitalization of drilling rigs. We showcase their preliminary application as drilling dynamics and rig operations sensors in this work. Cameras are an ideal sensor for a drilling environment since they can be installed anywhere on a rig to perform large-scale live video analytics on drilling processes.