AR Headsets Give Oil and Gas Sector the Quicker Fix

Abstract

Predictive algorithms have captured the imagination of industrial firms the world over because of the promise they hold for predicting show-stopping machine failures. But no matter when a digitally-prophesized breakdown comes, you still need someone to go out and fix the equipment the old-fashioned way—or maybe not. Augmented reality (AR) headsets are challenging the status quo by enabling faster repairs of mission-critical systems such as topdrives and gas compressors. Their arrival into the oil and gas sector is being led by the largest equipment manufacturers that say the technology’s chief contribution is its ability to mitigate the industrywide bane of downtime. Attached to a typical hardhat, these industrialized wearable computers combine video cameras, AR displays, and solid networking systems into a single unit. This gives the dispersed engineering team, vs. a lone technician in the field, a new way to collaborate on the toughest equipment-related problems. Earlier this year, a rig crew working in south Texas ran into trouble with a piece of equipment supplied by NOV that had stopped working correctly, and no one on-site knew how to fix it. “So they fired up the communications box, put the hard-hat and headset on, and had an answer from engineering within 10 minutes,” said Christopher Boehm, a service manager with NOV’s control systems group. Boehm is leading the implementation of the AR headsets at NOV, which have been rolled into a maintenance service it has branded TrackerVision. The voice-recognition software running inside these units enables users to call out commands like “wiring layout,” which prompt the headset to pull up a relevant engineering diagram. The user can move his or her head to scan the diagram, or say “zoom” to focus in on a key area and then “freeze document” to maintain a hold on the image as they do the work. But people can still get lost in the maze of wires and circuit boards found in a lot of modern oilfield equipment. This is when it is a good idea to use the headset’s two-way communications, using cell service or low-Earth-orbit satellites, to dial up the on-call expert. As the technician holds his or her view over a piece of equipment, the expert watching on the other end can even use a telestrator to draw circles around the components to replace, or which ones to leave alone. Industry Shows Strong Interest NOV is so confident about these enabling features that it is using AR headsets to support the successful implementation of one of its most important new products, the NOVOS automated rig control system, and has sent units to each of the rigs running on the platform.