SPE-171706-MS

Review of Downhole Wireless Communication Techniques

Muhammad Arsalan, Talha J. Ahmad, and Mohamed N. Noui-Mehidi, Saudi Aramco

Copyright 2014, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, 10 13 November 2014.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
Real-time permanent monitoring and control is essential to maximize production from oil and gas wells.
An interdisciplinary approach is needed for any cost-effective solution that can perform and be sustained
in the harsh downhole environment. For open hole horizontal wells, providing power and data through an
umbilical is very challenging. Wireless communication is the essential component of any downhole
monitoring and control solution in this situation. A wireless solution can also significantly reduce the
complexity and cost associated with the wired solutions. In this paper various wireless communication
techniques are classified and an extensive review of state-of-the-art downhole applications is presented.
Advantages and limitations of each technique are discussed and recommendations are made of possible
solutions.

Introduction
Long-term reservoir monitoring remains one of the critical requirements for the effective development and
optimization of oil and gas reservoirs (Brinsden 2005). Frequent monitoring and control is equally
important for both new and mature fields. Many new well completions now include sophisticated
permanent monitoring systems that can transmit data to the surface via an electrical or fiber optic cable,
associated with other downhole tools, such as clamps, wellhead and packer penetrations, surface power
supply, and surface data acquisition and transmission systems (Al-Nahdi 2011; Brinsden 2005; Harper
2003). These systems require significant capital expenditures (CAPEX) in both components and rig time;
and are prone to premature failure. A downhole wireless communication system can help resolve many
of the problems associated with wired well monitoring and control solutions by avoiding the difficulties,
cost and maintenance associated with the wired infrastructure. A wireless system can potentially be
retrofitted on-demand to avoid upfront CAPEX, and operational expenses (OPEX) associated with
traditional wired advanced completion monitoring and control systems. Any downhole wireless system,
however, will require a power source or needs to generate its own power, which may limit its usability
as well as the usable operational life.
This paper is focused on comparing wide range of wireless communication techniques for downhole
environment and exploring the possibilities and limitations of using those techniques in restrictive open
hole well configurations with no infrastructure, including umbilical for power, control and communication
and production tubing and liners, Fig. 1.

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Classification of Wireless
Communication Techniques
Traditionally, in the literature, wireless communication is almost always used for electromagnetic
(EM) wave-based communication in both space
(vacuum) and air. In a downhole environment, any
communication in absence of electrical wires and
optical fibers is considered wireless. This includes
communication through production tubing and the
reservoir formation. Keeping this in mind, the potential downhole communication techniques can be
classified either based on the communication me- Figure 1Simplified representation of open hole or bare hole horizontal
dium (solid, liquid, gas or vacuum) or the mode of well environment having no production tubing or liner and umbilical in
the laterals (L1 and L2) and the motherbore (L0).
transport, i.e., wave or particle, Fig. 2.
In the first case (medium), the communication
can either be through a physical medium that can be in any form of matter, i.e., solid, liquid and gas, or
medium-less, i.e., through vacuum. The transfer of energy through fluids (liquid and gas) required for
communication is mainly governed by the convection process where the particles of the medium
physically travel from one position to the other carrying the information or energy. While in solids, the
main phenomena that governs the energy transfer is conduction, in which the particles (atoms or
molecules) of the solid do not travel but only vibrates or oscillates around a mean position to transfer the
energy from and to the adjacent particles. Liquids also exhibit convection to a little extant. Communication without medium, i.e., through vacuum is only possible though EM radiation, which can further be
classified as near and far field EM.
In mode-based classification, the energy transfer required for communication can either be through
particle motion or wave motion. Moving particles from one location to the other requires an energy
gradient, such as a difference in pressure, temperature, or voltage. The waves can either be mechanical or
EM. Mechanical waves require a physical medium to travel. The examples are vibrations, sound and
pressure waves. EM waves, however, can travel through both physical mediums and vacuum. Examples
of EM waves are visible light, radio waves and X-rays among the others. Communication mode based
classification is used in the following section comparing different techniques for downhole applications
in an open hole environment.

Comparison of Communication Techniques

Several wireless communication solutions for downhole environment are available commercially (AlNahdi 2011; Brinsden 2005; Harper 2003), as well as, are proposed in the literature (Ring 2013). These
solutions have one or more shortcomings, which make them unsuitable for some applications and
environmental and operational conditions. To make it easy to understand the possibilities and limitations
of each technique, a qualitative comparison of the available techniques is presented. The comparison is
based on important and meaningful application requirements, including range, power consumption, data
rate, architectural complexity, safety, bidirectional communication ability, and long-term sustenance
capability in the restrictive harsh downhole environment. As shown in Table 1, the techniques are rated
as feasible (), not feasible , or may be (-) for each parameter.
Communication Mode: Particle
In this mode, physical particles travel from transmitter to the receiver or detector carrying information that
can be in the form of shape, size, color, chemical, physical identity (ID), electronic ID, and radioactive
ID, among others. An example of this kind of communication is the digital chemical telemetry system

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Figure 2Classification of downhole wireless (without electrical wires and optical fibers) communication techniques based on communication: a)
medium, i.e., solid, liquid, gas or vacuum, or b) mode, i.e., particle or wave.

(Ring 2013) in which different chemicals are stored in downhole containers that are released in a
predefined pattern at certain conditions. The chemicals are decoded at wellhead using a detection system.
The advantages of this system are its simplicity, long range, low complexity and operational safety. On
the other hand, this kind of communication is very slow, requires flow of the medium, half duplex, and
is limited to the amount of the particles that can be stored downhole. Although feasible for downhole
applications, the shortcomings seriously limit the possibilities of using this kind of telemetry for long-term
reliable communication solution.
Communication Mode: Wave
As described in Table 1, the waves can either be mechanical or EM. The detail of both kinds of
communication using waves as a carrier follows.
Mechanical Waves Acoustic waves are mechanical waves that are widely utilized in downhole communication solutions (Harper 2003). Based on human audible frequency range they are further divided
into infrasonic ( 20 Hz), audible (20 Hz 20 K Hz) and ultrasonic ( 20 KHz) waves.
Infrasonic These are very low frequency and long wavelength mechanical waves that are known to
travel thousands of miles through the ocean without losing much power. They are commonly used in
applications, such as earthquake monitoring and charting rock and petroleum formations below the earths
surface. Due to very low frequency, infrasonic waves are very slow and have very low bandwidth.
Infrasonic transceivers are generally expensive and very large in size, which limits their usage in
downhole applications. Novel miniaturization techniques may help reduce the physical size and associated
power consumption of infrasonic transceivers to make them feasible for downhole applications.

SPE-171706-MS

Table 1Comparison of Wireless Communication Techniques for Downhole Applications

Audible and Ultrasonic These waves are widely used in small to medium range underwater and
downhole communication systems (Harper 2003). Low absorption in both oil and water, long range,
moderate power consumption and support for modern digital communication schemes to achieve high
data rates makes them a good candidate for bidirectional downhole communication. The limitations are
the large size of the transducers at relatively low frequencies, strong reflections and attenuation in the
presence of air and gas, and sensitivity to the turbidity, ambient noise, salinity, and pressure gradients. If

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Figure 3Classification of electromagnetic waves based communication.

these difficulties can be compensated, ultrasonic waves are ideal for long range downhole wireless
communication.
EM Waves Traditionally, wireless communication is based on EM waves. The spectrum of EM waves
has been extensively explored and utilized in wireless communication systems. Based on the magnetic
dipole interaction of transmitter and receiver, which is a function of the distance between them, EM
communication can principally be divided into near field and far field, Fig. 3.
Near Field Capacitive and inductive coupling are two useful methods of wireless communication when
the transmitter and receiver plates of a capacitor or coils of a pair of inductors are placed relatively close
to each other. Near field communication is very energy efficient as it keeps all the energy at source if not
coupled with the other portion. Very high data rates can be achieved in near field communication. Recent
advancements in this concept has helped extend the communication range from a few centimeters to a few
meters (Kesler 2013), which is still not suitable for desired long range communication in a downhole
environment.
Far Field In far field, the EM spectrum from less than an Hz to THz and beyond can roughly be divided
into radio, optical and radioactive waves. Each of the class is further divided into well-defined frequency
domains with their distinct properties and behaviors, Fig. 3.
Radio As the name suggest, radio waves are the primary and most widely used medium for wireless
communication. Going from low to high frequency, they are further classified into analog, RF, and micro
() waves. RF and waves are ideal for high performance, high data rate, and miniaturized wireless
communication applications; however, in a downhole environment, tight power budget and high attenuation limits the use of the high frequency EM waves for long range wireless communication. On the other
hand, low frequency analog waves (100 Hz) are the prime focus of the downhole wireless applications
(Brinsden 2005). The low frequency, however, seriously limits the available bandwidth and increases the
size of communication antenna to make it difficult to fit in tight downhole dimensions. Recent advancements in antenna miniaturization techniques (Arsalan 2013; Shamim 2008) coupled with new techniques
in wireless sensor networks may enable low frequency EM to be used as a prime candidate for challenging
and compact downhole wireless applications.

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Optical These waves are widely used in modern telecommunication systems. Extremely high data rates
can be achieved with optical based wireless systems. For wireless communication, visible waves are not
a suitable due to the abundant optical noise in the form of other visible light sources. Both visible and
infrared (IR) laser-based systems can achieve very high data rates in line of sight communications, which
requires transparent clear medium in a straight line between the transmitter and the receiver; that is not
the case in most downhole applications. Certain IR and ultraviolet wavelengths can be used for very short
centimeter range wireless communication inside oil and water, but is not usable for long range applications. A major hurdle in optical communication is the accumulation of the solids over optical source and
detection window that limits their usability and lifetime and makes them not feasible for restrictive
downhole applications.
Radioactive In principle, the radioactive waves, including X-rays and -rays, can be used as carrier wave
in wireless communication systems. Recently, some systems have been reported using X-rays for wireless
communication applications (Gendreau 2007). Radioactive waves can be useful for short range downhole
communication due to their capability to penetrate through mediums, including metal casing. This avoids
the issue associated with optical window maintenance. Subsequently, due to restrictive downhole
environments, very short range of the radioactive waves and operational safety requirements restrict the
use of radioactive sources for any downhole wireless communication applications.

Summary and Conclusion

Communication techniques without electrical wires and optical fibers are explained and classified in this
paper. Different methods in a variety of physical domains are presented with an explanation of the
advantages, limitations and possible downhole applications. The techniques are compared based on the
environment, communication range, data rate, power requirements, and other factors. Recommendations
are made for the best solutions in specific scenarios. This paper may serve as a valuable reference and
resource for exploring and evaluating design choices for a wireless monitoring and control solution for
downhole applications.

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