Mobile Asset Management For Land Exploration

James F. McLellan, John B. Schleppe, Dave Huff and Peter Srajer

Abstract:	GPS systems have seen widespread use with surveyors in 3D-land exploration. The exploration industry is evolving from using ‘black boxes’ for surveying, to employing sophisticated real-time information gathering and analysis systems. Advanced communication, computing and database technologies are being sought to help increase production and reserves, reduce costs and improve cash flow. To achieve this, companies must have near real-time information on the status of their projects and location of personnel and assets. GPS technology has been used extensively for mapping and layout tasks prior to actually starting to record the seismic data. GPS-based systems are now integrated into the actual seismic acquisition operations. Land seismic projects vary greatly in size ranging from 250 to 50,000 points. Geophysical equipment will occupy each recording/source point, and vehicles and personnel will repeatedly visit all points. Limited access with heavy equipment, due to environmental and terrain restrictions, has prompted the extensive use of helicopters to move people and equipment to and from these points. Real-time operation management systems are being employed to assist with their deployment, measure production and generate daily productivity reports. These systems can be used to create the desired flow of the project and to distribute this information to the stakeholders in real-time. In heli-assisted operations using real-time tracking and guidance systems, the project manager will select where equipment is to be deployed/retrieved, and will send this information to the helicopter via a RF link in real-time. Real-time DGPS is used to guide the pilot to each of the locations. As equipment is dropped or retrieved this information is relayed back to the staging area and recording truck. Information can also be sent back to the oil company’s head office using links such as the Internet. GPS becomes the tool that provides position and time of where things are, and when and where events occurred. This paper will discuss Eagle’s Kodiak Mobile Asset Management System in Land 3D seismic heli-assisted acquisition operations.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 12th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1999) September 14 - 17, 1999 Nashville, TN
Pages:	2181 - 2190
Cite this article:	McLellan, James F., Schleppe, John B., Huff, Dave, Srajer, Peter, "Mobile Asset Management For Land Exploration," Proceedings of the 12th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1999), Nashville, TN, September 1999, pp. 2181-2190.
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