Digital oilfield

Autonomous Intelligent Logging Platform Enables Cost and Time Savings

The authors of this paper present a method of retrieving downhole data that is a practical and inexpensive alternative to wireline or slickline logging and permanently installed sensors.

Mechanical parts of the autonomous logging tool.
Fig. 1—Mechanical parts of the autonomous logging tool.

The complete paper describes a method of retrieving downhole data that is a practical and inexpensive alternative to wireline or slickline logging and permanently installed sensors. The autonomous logging platform, called the Sensor Ball, is a handheld, untethered logging tool that one person can deploy and recover from a pressurized well with no special equipment or crew.

The Autonomous Logging Platform

The tool is a battery-powered, self-deployed logging platform. A small dissolvable metal weight is attached to the housing magnetically and helps the free-fall of the tool in the well. Once a desired and programmed depth is reached, the tool releases the weight, and thus changes buoyancy and floats back to surface.

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