System Architecture and Technology
Strong fluctuations in crude oil prices and the expected production peak of current reservoirs are pushing the oil companies to increase investments in seismic exploration. Replacing cabling with wireless technology should radically improve the quality of depth imaging and simplify acquisition logistics. Recent advances in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) technology now allow the wireless community to satisfy the rigid constraints imposed by seismic acquisition systems with a large number of sensors (> 10000) over the monitoring area (> sqkm). Seismic prospecting requires a large number (e.g., up to 20,000-30,000) of sensors, such as geophones or MEMS-based (Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems) accelerometers, deployed over large areas (e.g., up to 30 sqkm) to measure the back-scattered wavefield generated by an active excitation source. Current telemetry is cable-based and usually requires hundreds of kilometers of cabling causing delays, high logistic costs and low imaging quality.
