Seismic

Surveys Searching for

valuable
underground
deposits of oil
Helicopter use
in such projects
has increased
during the past
Getting Geophysical with GPS and natural
gas, companies
decade, driven
in part by
Allan Chatenay explore the environmental
rugged terrain concerns and
of the Rocky low-impact
Mountains in seismic survey
northwestern methods. Now,
Alberta, GPS-equipped

T he loud whine of helicopter

turbines pierces the golden
silence of autumn dawn in
the Rocky Mountain foothills. A
few dozen wiry and determined
workers sip coffee from steam-
Canada, relying
on GPS for
crucial asset
tracking and
management
helicopters are
the focal point
in moving and
keeping track of
equipment and
ing cups and kick at the frosty capabilities. personnel.
ground, impatiently awaiting
their morning ride.
Within a few minutes, the
helicopters are loaded with
workers and gear. Soon, the
heavy, rhythmic thumping of the
Allan Chatenay helicopters fades into the hills
Schlumberger across the icy green of a moun-
tain river. Once at their remote
location, the quartet of heli-
Allan Chatenay is the copters will spend the day
Canada Manager for deploying people and equipment
Schlumberger’s Evaluation throughout the heavily forested
Seismic Division. He has hills.
been with the company more Thus begins another day on
than 10 years and began his our geophysical exploration pro-
career as a surveying ject, with our client taking aim at
assistant. a large gas reservoir trapped
more than 3 kilometers below the
Photographs courtesy of surface in folded and faulted
Jim McLellan, Eagle Earth structures. With nearby
Navigation Systems Inc. wells staking claim to gas reser-
voirs exceeding 400 billion cubic
feet, and worth $1.2 billion dol-
22 GPS W O R L D May 2000 www.gpsworld.com

lars at today’s prices, the poten-
tial payoff is large enough to
warrant the significant expendi-
tures required to find the reser-
voir. Because of those costs, it is
also worth our time to investigate
the latest technologies and how
they might facilitate our work.
We have done just that with GPS
and other positioning devices,
discovering much more than just
monetary benefits along the way.
PAINTING THE GEO-PICTURE
Through our work with the land
seismic segment of Schlum-
berger oilfield services, formerly
known as Geco-Prakla, our
objective is to paint as accurate a
picture of the subsurface geology
as possible. We do this by gener-
ating sound waves at one source
point at a precise moment in time
and listening for those sound
waves using sensitive receiving
devices, called geophones, posi-
tioned at varying distances and
azimuths from the source point.
By analyzing the characteristics
of those sound waves (arrival
times, amplitude, frequency con-
tent), we can create a detailed
picture of the subsurface,
enabling us to relate our survey
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to other geographic data, such as
land holdings, existing geologi-
cal features, or future drilling
locations.
A Hot Start. To that end, we
began our enormous and com-
plex operation months before,
late in summer. At the time, tem-
peratures soared near tropical
levels. Line clearing crews,
whose job it is to clear a path for
our vast array of seismic sensors,
had toiled under blazing sun,
sweating their way up forested
hillsides that had become brittle
and tinder dry. In the valleys,
they had waded through stagnant
muskeg bogs, a perfect and fer-
tile breeding ground for the mil-
lions of mosquitoes that eagerly
and aggressively pursued their
blood-rich flesh.
For the most part, line-clear-
ing crews work directly with
surveyors using a state-of-the-art
inertial navigation system inte-
grated with GPS to stake out the
geophysical survey. In particular,
our crews use a system designed
by Schlumberger that consists of
a 18-kilogram, carbon-fiber
backpack, containing three small
ring laser gyros, three accelerom-
eters, a 12-channel, L1, C/A-
code GPS receiver, and a hand-
held data controller, permitting
accurate surveying without line
of site as with optical-based
instruments. This new technol-
ogy allows us to lay out our sur-
vey without cutting down any
trees, making our program both In the photos above, air
environmentally benign and hammer drilling equip-
ment drives 20-meter
invisible to the aerial
holes into the earth,
photographer. which are then loaded
Following close behind the with explosives for use
survey crews, helicopter-portable with an array of sound-
drilling crews use the twin- sensitive equipment to
engine aircraft to hoist 2,800- paint an accurate pic-
pound pieces of air hammer ture of underground
reservoirs of oil or nat-
drilling equipment through the ural gas.
hills. The air hammers drill thou-
sands of 20-meter holes, and
each hole is loaded with a 10- On the preceding page,
kilogram, high explosive depth a helicopter ferries
charge. equipment slung below
Breezing into Fall. Then, as the the aircraft on a longline
autumn winds blew in the first that can stretch as long
few flakes that would soon create as 50 meters. Above
a blanket of snow covering our left, a ground crew
prospect area, my blood pressure attaches bags of record-
rose as the mercury fell. As ing geophones onto a
country manager, my role is to helicopter’s longline for
ensure that our client’s expecta- transport into the field.
tions are met on the dozens of
projects we are simultaneously
involved in. Most of these pro-
jects are challenging, but our
experienced and efficient team
gets the job done.
Soon, the recording crew
arrived, bringing at least 50 addi-
tional workers and more than
3,000 channels of recording
equipment — more than 250
kilometers of cabling, as many as
500 ruggedized electronic boxes,
GPS W O R L D May 2000 23

The photo above depicts and nearly 20,000 geophones,
a typical staging area in sensitive sound-receiving
the field, complete with devices — in all, a doghouse full
longline bags and geo- of sophisticated electronics. The
phone recorders awaiting crew’s equipment costs more
transport to remote sites. than $10 million to assemble and
At right, a recording truck typically causes at least as many
records geophone data logistical challenges.
and houses the vital link During the project, all of this
to helicopter pilots in the equipment is laid out along the
field, providing dispatch- receiver lines prepared earlier by
ing and tracking for the line clearing and survey
equipment and personnel crews. A geophone array is
in the field. planted into the ground at each
receiver point staked out by the
surveyors.
As each source point is deto-
nated, the corresponding signal
generated by each geophone
array is transmitted to recorders
housed in trucks at our staging
area through the network of
cables that will be deployed on
the ground. If all goes well, our
client should have the resulting
data in their hands in time to
mobilize their drilling rig to a
suitable drilling location this
winter. To get this all done, we
now rely on GPS as our guide.
GPS ON THE SCENE
We use GPS technology
throughout the program. First,
our scout uses GPS to help find
his way during the initial recon-
24 GPS W O R L D May 2000
naissance mission to the area.
The helicopter pilots use it to
record the locations of the
dozens of landing zones that dot
the prospect area. We also estab-
lish a large survey control net-
work over the entire project area
using dual-frequency GPS
receivers in static mode.
We recently took our use of
GPS to a new level, by employ-
ing a real-time GPS guidance
and tracking system for deploy-
ing our assets and people in the
field. While we once used GPS
mainly for mapping and layout
tasks prior to acquisition of the
seismic data, we’ve now embed-
ded GPS into the actual acquisi-
tion process, allowing project
managers to see the current sta-
tus of the total acquisition
process and location of their
assets. GPS information inte-
grated with communication links
and dynamic databases are the
tools that provide position and
time tags of where things are and
when and where events occurred.
A New Method. This ability to dis-
play GPS data has also changed
our approach to crew manage-
ment. Until recently, the crew
coordinator used to hang a map
on the wall to keep track of
equipment deployment status
and to track the locations for all
the source and receiver stations.
In addition, on the ground, we
used to mark the targeted areas
with flags to show the pilot
where to drop the load. This also
required sending personnel to the
stations before deploying equip-
ment there, which meant another
helicopter flight and required
additional coordination and con-
trols to ensure their safety. While
these methods worked, they were
inefficient, error
prone, and made
poor use of existing
technology.
If we were still
doing things the old
way, each time it
snowed our flagging
would be buried,
blown away, or eaten
by wildlife. We
would therefore have
to send workers back to revisit
each equipment drop site before
deploying equipment. Finally,
we would have to remove all the
flags at the time we retrieved the
geophones and cabling. This was
time consuming and costly, espe-
cially when the flagging was
frozen into ice or snow.
We are obviously happy to
avoid those extra steps now, and
have discovered other benefits of
using GPS. We are now less
reliant on voice communication,
for instance, as it is no longer the
sole means to relay instructions
to the pilot about where to fly.
Our new system has elimi-
nated many of the inefficiencies.
Although the program still offers
many challenges, my life, as well
as those of my coworkers, cer-
tainly got a little easier with the
addition of GPS positioning.
SEARCHING UNDERGROUND
Seismic projects are often
referred to as two-dimensional
(2D), 3D or 4D layouts. Two-
dimensional seismic projects
consist of a single line or several
lines that range in length from
less than a kilometer to hundreds
of kilometers. This provides us
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with an image in the form of a
“slice” of the subsurface.
On a 3D seismic project, we
acquire a “cube” of data by lay-
ing out source and receiver lines
in a grid. By repeating the survey
over time, we can obtain a 4D
view of the subsurface, enabling
us to observe the movement of
fluids and gases in the under-
ground reservoir. We use infor-
mation from these surveys to
delineate the size of an oil or nat-
ural gas field and provide an esti-
mation of the reservoir size.
To acquire these data, we lay
out a network of source and
receiver points arrayed either in a
straight line (2D seismic) or on a
large grid (3D seismic), using
lines that are typically, but not
always, laid out perpendicular to
each other. We space source and
receiver points from 5 to 300
meters apart, with the distance
between lines ranging from less
than 100 meters to more than a
kilometer.
Listening In. At each receiver
point, we plant an array of geo-
phones ranging from a single
geophone to more than 72,
depending on the characteristics
of the surface and the near sur-
face. Each geophone has from
one to four tiny elements consist-
ing of a coil and a magnet. When
sound waves move the earth
beneath the geophone, the mag-
net(s) moves inside the coil(s),
generating a small electric pulse
that is analogous to the sound
wave moving through the earth
below the geophone.
In a typical geophone array,
the analog waves from all of the
geophones in the array are aver-
aged to eliminate noise in the
near surface. This averaged ana-
log wave is typically referred to
as a channel of data. It is sent via
cable to an electronic device that
converts the analog signal to a
digital signal. This device then
either stores it in memory for
collection at a later date or sends
it to a sophisticated tape recorder
either through a network of
cables or through radio waves.
These tapes are then processed
along with the topographical sur-
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vey data to create the desired
image of the subsurface.
We generate sound energy at
each source point by a variety of
methods, the two most common
being dynamite or vibrators,
which are large, heavy vehicles
that shake the ground using
sophisticated hydraulic systems
and control systems. Each source
and receiver point must be accu-
rately positioned and receiver
lines must be prepared in
advance to allow crews to plant
the geophones in the ground and
lay cables and electronics along
the lines. Source lines must be
prepared to allow for the deploy-
ment of drills or vibrators.
A Logistical Nightmare. The chal-
lenge comes in deploying the
large volume of geophones,
cables, and electronics over an
enormous area and ensuring that
the signal from every geophone
array on the ground will be prop-
erly recorded to tape. A few
decades ago, seismic recording
systems consisted of 24 or 48
live channels. Today, our latest
state-of-the-art recording system
has a 30,000-channel recording
capacity. To imagine what this is
like, think of setting up a system
in a gigantic football stadium
with tens of thousands of seats,
where every attendee would have
a microphone attached to the
seat, recording sound waves as
they are at each seat.
Now, to get a better idea of a
typical seismic operation, imag-
ine that the stadium is 10 kilome-
ters long by 10 kilometers wide!
In the often rugged terrain where
our operations take place,
rodents and cattle chew on
cables, and lightning occasion-
ally hits the cables and destroys
the electronics. Lines crisscross
rivers, lakes, swamps, muskeg,
mountains, deserts, jungle, for-
est, towns, and farmland. We are
constantly laying cables down,
recording data for that line, then
picking those cables up and mov-
ing them to a new line. It doesn’t
take long to see why we have a
massive logistical nightmare on
our hands.
Such complex operations
require a multitude of coordi-
nated tasks to be carried out with
precision to ensure the project
runs smoothly. These tasks range
from deploying and retrieving
geophones, power sources, and
cables, to line crews laying out
and rolling up lines on foot, or by
helicopter, all-terrain vehicle
(ATV), or snowmobile. Other
key aspects are trouble-shooting
cable or line problems, setting up
the recording truck where infor-
mation from geophones is col-
lected; and coordinating the
dispatching of people and assets.
Completing all of these tasks
requires people, vehicles, and
equipment to be deployed at each
of the network layout points sev-
eral times during the course of a
project. However, the environ-
ment and terrain often restrict
heavy equipment access. In the- The inertial navigation system
ory, we would ideally like to lay designed by Schlumberger is a
out all the points in straight lines, 18-kilogram, carbon-fiber back-
but this is seldom the case, as pack that contains three small
permits often restrict access to a ring laser gyros, three
property, or exclusion zones accelerometers, and a 12-chan-
exist because of buildings, nel, L1, C/A-code GPS receiver.
pipelines, or water wells. Terrain The mobile backpack system
restrictions such as rivers, permits accurate surveying in
creeks, valleys, and steep hills rugged terrain where line of
may also limit access. In the case site is not easily obtained. It
of farmland containing fences, also allows the company to lay
we often have to take a detour, out surveys without cutting
because fence cuts are not down any trees, minimizing
always allowed. environmental impact.
HELP FROM HELICOPTERS
As a result of working in this
challenging environment, instead
of ground transportation, we use
helicopters — now equipped
with GPS. We ferry seismic
recording equipment by slinging
it beneath the helicopters in large
bags, as well as by using these
aircraft to move people and
equipment to layout points.
One driving force for using
helicopters and GPS is a new
approach, known as low-impact
seismic (LIS) methods, which is
used on many projects in
Canada. In traditional seismic
survey projects, crews used large
machinery to create 6–8-meter-
wide unobstructed paths through
forests to clear the way for per-
sonnel and equipment. This prac-
GPS W O R L D May 2000 25

Recording and survey- tice left visible scars on the land-
ing crews, wearing scape evident for years after.
self-contained inertial LIS practices require us to
navigation systems limit the width of the spaces we
designed for low-envi- cut for our seismic lines to one
ronmental-impact sur- and a half meters, with the goal
veying, stake out of avoiding as much mer-
geophone recording chantable timber as possible. The
lines. self-contained inertial navigation
systems we use for our geophysi-
cal surveys afford us the oppor-
tunity for zero impact, or at the
very least, the paths of least
resistance through forested areas.
Avoiding or eliminating tree
cutting is a massive environmen-
tal improvement and the main
reason for doing it. It may have
been cheaper and faster to
destroy trees and ground cover
using heavy bulldozers the way
we used to, but that just doesn’t
cut it any more. In addition, often
GPS doesn’t work under heavy
forest cover, and we don’t think
that cutting down more trees to
open the forest canopy so GPS
will work is a good idea, so we
use our inertial navigation sys-
tem instead.
A Money Saver Too. If we cut any
swaths through forestlands, our
clients must also pay full
stumpage fees for any timber cut
both on private or government-
owned lands, even though the
landowner still owns the logs.
However, new regulations in
place reduce the stumpage fees
by half when avoidance-survey-
ing methods are employed, or to
26 GPS W O R L D May 2000
zero when we perform full
avoidance surveying on foot with
our inertial navigation systems.
We therefore lay out points in
areas to cut as little timber as
possible. In these cases, no trees
are cut down — we simply clear
a walking trail through the forest,
as we are no longer dependent on
line of sight for theodolite sur-
veys nor are we hampered by the
forest canopy.
Ubiquitous Use. Helicopters were
traditionally used mostly in
mountainous and forested areas
because of the difficulties gain-
ing access with large and heavy
equipment. We now use them
almost everywhere. In open
prairie areas, using these aircraft
minimizes damage to crops,
reduces soil compaction, and
minimizes fence cutting and
repairs.
In other areas, helicopters
allow us to minimize all environ-
mental impact, which is often a
condition of receiving permit
approval from a landowner to
conduct surveys on private lands.
Even if such restrictions are not a
condition of approval, heli-
copters allow us to tread with a
much lighter footprint than we
used to. Overall, the renewed
emphasis on environmental val-
ues provides us with an increased
incentive to use our new inte-
grated inertial and GPS survey
systems.
PROJECT GUIDANCE
Beyond the environmental bene-
fits of using GPS, the technology
has also helped increase project
efficiency. We use real-time
operation management systems
to assist with deployment, mea-
sure productivity, and generate
daily production reports. These
GPS-enabled management sys-
tems, by tracking the movement
and location of assets and per-
sonnel, can be used to create the
desired flow of the project and to
distribute this information to the
stakeholders in real time.
In helicopter-assisted opera-
tions, the project manager will
select where equipment is to be
deployed and then send this
information to the helicopter by
way of a radio-frequency (RF)
link in real time.
Differential On Board. One manage-
ment approach employs a real-
time differential GPS (DGPS)-
based guidance system installed
in the helicopter. Using this
method, either large chunks of
the project or the entire project is
loaded into the onboard system.
The coordinator then communi-
cates with the pilot by RF voice
links, indicating where bags
should be deployed and
retrieved. The pilot scrolls
through the information on
screen to select the target.
Optionally, the system can
also select the closest target to
the helicopter’s current position.
This system can cause some
additional pilot tasking if the
pilot has to move in an irregular
pattern. Real-time DGPS equip-
ment integrated with a display
unit guides the pilot to each tar-
get. At each event that occurs,
such as dropping and retrieving
equipment or transporting per-
sonnel, the information is
recorded in the onboard com-
puter and communicated back to
the staging area dispatch system
and the recording truck.
The information can also be
sent back to the oil or geophysi-
cal company’s head office, using
communications links such C- or
L-band satellites to a hub and
then over the Internet. The event
information is also downloaded
at the end of the day to a com-
puter and added to a database.
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Dispatching and More. A more
complex second approach uses a
centrally controlled dispatch sys-
tem. This vehicle guidance and
management system consists of
two major components, namely a
navigation system installed in the
helicopter and office software
located at a base camp computer.
In this system, the project
coordinator holds the responsi-
bility to create the missions with
the target locations. Each of
these targets has a coordinate,
target name, action (for example,
drop, pickup, land, spray) and
attribute (geophone, power sup-
ply units, special, and so forth)
associated with it. The coordina-
tor can view in real-time the tar-
get that the pilot is locked onto,
the course over ground (COG)
and speed over ground (SOG) of
the helicopter, and the azimuth
and distance to the target. When
the pilot drops or retrieves the
load, the information is transmit-
ted to the coordinator’s vehicle
and displayed on the computer.
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ONBOARD ELEMENTS
For both management methods,
the mobile navigation system on
the helicopter is a remote guid-
ance unit (RGU) consisting of a
vehicle-mounted DGPS naviga-
tion and guidance system, using
a 12-channel, L1, C/A-code GPS
receiver coupled with an OEM
DGPS receiver module (see Fig-
ure 1). The system runs on a
computer using a QNX real-time
operating system and is con-
nected using RF links back to a
single controlling headquarter
station. It includes a remote dis-
play for the pilot and a keypad
for menu operation.
For the system to operate in a
helicopter with the antenna situ-
ated beneath the blades and near
the main rotor, it is critical to use
a GPS receiver that can handle
high dynamics and has a fast re-
acquisition rate. A TSO-C129-
approved, high gain combination
GPS/L-band antenna is used and
low-loss antenna cable is recom-
mended.
In the Air. In the helicopter cock- Figure 1 above
pit, a high contrast monochrome shows the compo-
screen is mounted in a rugged nents of the dis-
housing that can be viewed at a patch/navigation
wide angle in intense sunlight system.
and is backlit for nighttime or
low-light viewing. The display The photo at left
has an internal heater that shows the
enables it to function in cold man–machine inter-
Canadian winter temperatures, face housed in a
with a design intended for it to be helicopter cockpit
stored at temperatures at –20 °C. which provides an
A 35-watt UHF/VHF radio is intuitive, easily seen
used for communicating infor- display of vital mis-
mation from the mobile system sion and flight
to the base station computer. information.
Repeaters located on high points
are often required to ensure a
solid communication link.
This component of the system
also uses standard helicopter 28-
volt power. A keypad is used to
mark pick-ups and out-of-
sequence point selection, and can
also be used to mark sites such as
helicopter landing pads. Another
feature of the system allows the
pilot to select the closest point to
the helicopter that has already
not been completed in the mis-
sion. The pilot presses a switch
on the cyclic when a bag is
released from the carousel. The
management system receives a
GPS W O R L D May 2000 27
 voltage from this switch, and
automatically advances to the
next point in the mission after the
bag is dropped. Data are stored
internally and mirrored onto a
compact flash card for backup
and easy transfer to the base
camp office computer.
The man–machine interface
(MMI) in the helicopter cockpit
is a critical factor in the design of
a guidance system for the pilot.
At first glance, one might think it
would be advantageous to dis-
play a map so the pilot could see
location relative to topographic
features. During the interface
system’s development, a simula-
tor was developed that allowed
the pilots to fly the system on a
computer, which revealed that
not to be the case.
Feedback from both pilots and
aviation safety groups led to a
design that is intuitive to under-
stand and allows the pilot to
interpret instructions with a short
glance. In actual flight situations,
the pilot often has only a fraction
of a second to look at the MMI
screen, so a complex design
would hinder the pilot from
interpreting what information is
onscreen. (For more information
about a pilot’s use of the system,
refer to the “From the Cockpit”
sidebar below.)
The navigation system also
provides several advantages for
the pilot, including the ability to
fly directly to the target without
having to follow a map and con-
firm terrain features; the pilot has
the full complement of mission
knowledge without extensive
radio communication — where
to go and what to drop/receive;
and the pilot can mark several
waypoints and return to them
later (such as a fuel cache).
Seeing the Constellation. Where
satellite coverage is adequate, the
system uses an easily accessible
source of DGPS range correc-
tions, simplifying system setup
in the field. A major advantage
of this system is that a continu-
ous communication link is not
required to the headquarter com-
puter for GPS corrections.
Instead, they are received on
an L-band downlink from a geo-
stationary satellite situated over
the equator, which sends spot
beams over North America. The
further north in latitude that the
system is operated, the lower the
elevation angle and the suscepti-
bility to terrain masking. This
effect is somewhat minimized in
a helicopter, as it is usually high
enough above the ground that
trees or terrain does not block the
signal. A local GPS base station
can be setup in areas where it is

FROM THE COCKPIT — A Pilot’s Point of View

While working on a seismic surveying project
in rugged, mountainous environments, the
helicopter pilot’s day begins early, with the
aircrews meeting at about 5:30 a.m. for
breakfast. In remote locations such as the
heavily forested regions of the Rocky
Mountains, we sometimes have to drive 1–2
hours just to get to the aircraft. After preflight
checks, we either transport recording crews
out to their remote lines laid through the
landscape, or wait to ferry bags of equipment to and from work sites.
The rugged environs of geophysical surveying projects force pilots
to contend with smaller landing platforms, bushes or trees in the
landing area, strong winds, and poor weather conditions. We stage
our daily flights from a prepared langing zone to roughly hewn heli-
pads, dotted throughout the project area and often scratched out of
the environment by slashing crews who sometimes have to site the
helipad in treacherous terrain, such as narrow ravines or steep moun-
tainsides. These pads, which can number as many as 300 on a large
project, are typically 100 feet in diameter, with a 18 3 12–foot land-
ing platform.
In the mountains, winds present one of the most dangerous haz-
ards. Under normal conditions, a loaded helicopter can typically climb
300–500 feet per minute. Even a gentle breeze blowing either up or
down a mountainside, however, equates to 440 feet per minute,
causing difficulties in efficient flying. Ground crews occasionally
grouse about this fact when they can’t be picked up or brought to
their desired location because of wind conditions.
After ferrying crew members, most of the day is consumed with
transporting bags, which is where the in-cockpit navigation and dis-
patch system comes into play. With this system, a coordinator will
send a mission to the heli-
copter. If received enroute, I
can scan the mission profile to
ensure it is safe and efficient
while I am traveling at a safe
altitude, prior to slowing the
aircraft down to a low and
slow speed, where an emer-
gency situation would be the
most difficult to deal with.
The man–machine interface (MMI) screen in the cockpit allows me
to view a lot of information in a simple, effective way, including type
of mission, bag-drop number, distance to the drop site, as well as
helicopter heading and speed. One key advantage of the system is
that it enables consistency between different pilots, thanks to its
emphasis on getting from one point to the next efficiently. Learning
how to use the MMI is also relatively simple, allowing new pilots to be
brought up to speed quickly.
The GPS component provides a great navigation tool, but as a
pilot, I have to remain diligent and not rely too much on GPS, main-
taining a watchful eye for other hazards such as trees, power lines,
and other aircraft. Pilots need a lot of discipline to avoid focusing on
the MMI screen and flying like a video game player. If we instead use
the new technology to its fullest extent, we can fly confidently and
safely.
Paul Kendall is chief pilot with Peace Helicopters of Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada, a post he has held for four years. He has logged
more than 9,500 flight hours including working on seismic survey
projects during the past 15 years. He has flown mainly in western
Canada, as well as Peru and the western United States.

28 GPS W O R L D May 2000 www.gpsworld.com


Figure 2
shows a diagram
of the bag-drop-
ping operations.
not possible to receive differen-
tial network corrections.
LOSING THE BAG BLUES
On a 3D seismic project, hori-
zontal-positioning accuracy of
the source and receiver stations
is usually less than 1 meter. It is
preferred that the bags be
dropped within 10 meters of the
target location, otherwise the line
crew will have to carry the
equipment further, requiring
additional layout time. Analysis
of results using DGPS navigation
systems shows that the average
distance is usually 3–5 meters.
The pilot could get closer, but
the additional helicopter time
would not be cost efficient. It is
quite common to misplace a bag
of equipment that may cost
between $20,000 and $50,000.
The bag or equipment is usually
recovered, but there may be a
time delay and expense in locat-
ing it. By using a real-time track-
ing system, it is possible to
automatically know where the
bags have been deployed
(whether perfectly on target or
not) and retrieved.
Bussing Bags. A helicopter can
carry from 5 to 12 bags at a time,
depending on factors such as the
www.gpsworld.com
bag weight, the lifting power of
the helicopter, air temperature,
and altitude. The bags are con-
nected to a carousel attached to a
longline that ranges from 25–50
meters. Bags are laid out on the
ground by releasing the hook
holding the bag on the carousel.
For bag retrieval, it is required
to have a person at each pickup
point to connect the bag to the
carousel. This causes a potential
safety concern, as well as the
expense of having a number of
people traveling down narrow
cut lines on snowmobiles or
ATVs. However, a new system
we call BagRunner has been
developed that will allow the
helicopter to automatically pick
up bags without requiring per-
sonnel on the ground.
Combining a positioning sys-
tem with the above-described
pickup system (see Figure 2)
enables the helicopter to deploy
bags without ground marking
and to retrieve bags with no per-
sonnel on the ground, greatly
speeding up operations as well as
reducing personnel costs and
exposure in the field.
The navigation system allows
the pilot to fly directly to the sta-
tion without constantly searching
Equipment bags
are moved from
the staging area
to the field using
a helicopter’s
longline.
Figure 3
shows the
components of
the base station
hardware.
for landmarks on the map and
ground, effectively reducing the
pilot’s task load. Without an
accurate DGPS system, the pilot
may often circle a station several
times looking for the station or
the person on the ground. In a
high production environment,
bags are deployed and retrieved
at rates varying from 20 to 50
bags per flying hour. The sling-
ing operations require intense
pilot concentration, and interac-
tion with the navigation system
must be minimal.
BACK AT THE BASE
Back at the project headquarters,
we run the system software on an
industrial grade personal com-
puter (PC) under Windows 98
(see Figure 3). It is geographi-
GPS W O R L D May 2000 29
 cally situated to be within con-
ventional RF communications
range of the vehicles or an RF
repeater at all times. We view a
geographic information system
(GIS) console to manage and
coordinate vehicle operations
with the cooperation and active
participation of the vehicle oper-
ator during a seismic program,
providing optimal use of expen-
sive resources.
The headquarters’ software
also generates missions for the
This application . . . remote vehicles, displays the cur-
On the Fly
discovered rent vehicle positions, and pro-

environmental concerns vides reports on activities. We
and low-impact seismic can also import base-map infor-
methods have driven the mation from TIFF, DXF, and
use of new and innovative other file formats into various
technologies in exploration layers. Source and receiver pre-
land seismic surveys plot and final coordinates are

GPS technology is not imported from SEG P1 and
only a central enabler for Excel file formats. All coordinate
initial project reconaissance information is converted from
and seismic survey layout, local datum and stored in World
but can also serve as a key Geodetic System of 1984 format,
component in a real-time allowing coordinates to be in the
navigation, dispatch, and same datum as low-cost hand-
asset-tracking system held GPS receivers that are often
used for general navigation.

such a system allows Mission Profiles. When using the
project managers to over-
system, we generally create mis-
come many logistical chal- sions from the source and
lenges presented by seis- receiver lines. For bag deploy-
mic exploration projects, by ment, the system can automati-
keeping updated on the cally select a point interval from
progress of operations, as the line. Bag drops can also be
well as location of all valu- skidded and offset from the
able assets and personnel source or receiver point automat-

a key feature of the sys- ically. Quite often, we need to
tem is the helicopter cock- place the equipment halfway
pit interface that allows between two stations, or we may
pilots, who are valuable also need to offset bags a certain
parts of the entire seismic distance from a flight obstruc-
data acquisition process, to tion, such as power lines.
quickly and easily receive On the base camp computer,
and transmit vital flight and the system polls vehicles in a
logistical information sequential fashion with informa-
tion transmitted to the base camp
every five to 10 seconds. Each
time a vehicle is polled, it trans-
mits its current target, position,
COG, and SOG. Any events,
such as drops or pickups, since
the last poll are also transmitted.
If the communication link is tem-
porarily interrupted, the system
will accumulate the drops and
pickups until the next poll. It will
keep transmitting the events until
30 GPS W O R L D May 2000
an acknowledgment is received
from the main computer. We can
also send a text message to the
aicraft that will be displayed on
the MMI screen.
The system also allows us to
select a number of points in a
mission. Missions can automati-
cally be reversed should the wind
change and the pilot want to fly
in the opposite direction. The
system stores all missions in a
database and keeps track of the
completed points.
An old mission can be re-sent
to the vehicle, indicating which
points are already completed. We
can also attach an attribute to a
point in a mission, indicating that
it contains a power supply unit,
geophone type, or is a special
bag. The status of the point on
the display and in the database
changes as bags are dropped and
retrieved, or we can choose to
manually toggle that a bag has
been dropped or picked up.
Additional Monitors. We can also
place a remote monitor at other
locations, such as the recording
truck or at the base camp. By
seeing the helicopter’s current
location on the recording truck’s
display, we can delay a shot
along the receiver lines until the
helicopter has moved away from
the live geophone spread. If a
helicopter is flying over the lines
when the shot is detonated, the
noise from the helicopter can
interfere with the signals
received in the geophones.
In setting up the remote sta-
tions, a system installed at the
base camp will allow us to see
the current status of the bag
deployment and retrieval. Only
the coordinator at the staging
area can create and send mis-
sions. All other displays are for
monitoring only. All information
from the system is stored in
Microsoft Access–compatible
database files. Project reports are
generated, giving details about
the number of helicopter hours,
distance flown, and bags
deployed or retrieved.
Reaping the Benefits. We have
realized a myriad of benefits
from our investment in using a
GPS-enabled navigation and dis-
patching, benefits which we can
then pass on to our clients. Since
incorporating the system in May
1998, we’ve been able to operate
more efficiently in the often
rugged natural environments that
make the logistical portion of our
projects so challenging. We
intend to further improve the sys-
tem and take advantage of new
technologies and innovative
approaches, all with the intention
of performing a job well done.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to
acknowledge the support of Jim
McLellan, John Schleppe, Dave
Huff, Peter Srajer, and Ronnie
Louie from Eagle Navigation
Systems Inc. of Calgary, Alberta,
Canada; Mardon Day with
Schlumberger; Steve Matthews
from Venture Helicopters, Cal-
gary, Alberta, Canada; and Paul
Kendall and Clarence Unger
with Peace Helicopters, Edmon-
ton, Alberta, Canada. ■
MANUFACTURERS
Schlumberger’s Reservoir Evalua-
tion Seismic Division uses the
NS500 Kodiak System from Eagle
Navigation Systems Inc. (Calgary,
Alberta, Canada). The Kodiak
system employs a 3111R/RT-20
GPS receiver from NovAtel, Inc.
(Calgary, Alberta, Canada) and
3000LCE differential GPS correc-
tion module from OmniSTAR
(Houston, Texas). The Kodiak sys-
tem also uses a RFM96S 35-watt
radio modem from Pacific Crest
Corporation (Santa Clara, Califor-
nia). Helicopters are equipped with
combination GPS/L-band antennas
from AeroAntenna Technology
(Chatsworth, California). Schlum-
berger’s Navpac backpack inertial
navigation system uses an inertial
navigation unit from Honeywell
(Morristown, New Jersey) and a
Leica (Torrance, California)
MX9400 GPS receiver. The
Navpac’s handheld data logger is
supplied by DAP Technologies
(Tampa, Florida).
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