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SummaryWe deploy an adaptive observer recently developed for general hyperbolic partial differential equation (PDE) systems to detect and diagnose various drilling incidents. The well is modeled by a distributed PDE which, contrary to lumped models, preserves fundamental properties of well-flow dynamics enabling faster and more accurate incident detection and estimation. Wired drillpipe technology with pressure sensors is needed to locate and isolate incidents. Four realistic simulation case studies demonstrating various properties of the observer are presented. Drilling incidents treated in the simulation case studies include packoff in the annulus, formation in-flows, loss of circulation, and various combinations of these. Although simulation results show that the developed observers successfully estimate properties of the incidents that they are tailored for, they do not constitute an incident-detection system for drilling. However, they provide a part of the data on which an overall incident-detection system can rely.

We design an adaptive observer for semi-linear 2 × 2 hyperbolic PDEs with parametric uncertainties in both state equations. The proposed method is an extension of a previous result where parametric uncertainties were only allowed in one of the system equation. We utilize partial state measurements of one of the distributed states to estimate the remaining unknown distributed state. The method can be applied to flow rate estimation in fluid flow systems where the pressure is measured.

An adaptive observer design for a system of n + 1 coupled 1-D linear hyperbolic partial differential equations with an uncertain boundary condition is presented, extending previous results by removing the need for sensing collocated with the uncertainty. This modification is important and motivated by applications in oil & gas drilling where information about the down-hole situation is crucial in order to prevent or deal with unwanted incidents. Uncertainties are usually present down-hole while measurements are available top-side at the rig, only. Boundedness of the state and parameter estimates is proved in the general case, while convergence to true values requires bounded system states and, for parameter convergence, persistent excitation. The central tool for analysis is the infinitedimensional backstepping method applied in two steps, the first of which is time-invariant, while the second is time-varying induced by the time-varying parameter estimates.

We design an adaptive model-based observer for state and parameter estimation in 2 × 2 semi-linear hyperbolic systems with uncertain parameters where we assume that one of the two distributed states is available through distributed sensing. The uncertainties appear in the equation for the unmeasured distributed state and may be non-linear in the unmeasured state, although linearly parameterized. The adaptive law is designed using a Lyapunov approach and expressed in terms of known signals by utilizing the specific model structure which gives rise to a general solution strategy valid for a large class of non-linear source terms. © 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

We study the kick and loss detection and attenuation problem in managed pressure drilling by modeling the well as a distributed parameter system. Two cases are considered, distinguished by whether down-hole pressure measurements are available or not. The main contribution of the paper is a theoretical result on adaptive stabilization and set-point regulation by boundary control for a general 2 × 2 linear hyperbolic system in the case of measurements taken at both boundaries, with stability proven in the L 2 -sense. The design is applied to the drilling system and shown to solve the kick and loss problem with sensing at both boundaries. An earlier result on adaptive set-point regulation for 2 × 2 hyperbolic systems is also applied to the drilling system and shown to solve a kick and loss problem with sensing restricted to the actuated boundary only. The two designs are compared in a simulation of a loss incident, showing a significant reduction in convergence time and total accumulated loss for the design with sensing allowed at both boundaries.