UAV – An Ideal Platform for Ultra-Long Offset Marine Seismic Data Acquisition

Abstract

Summary Ultra-long offset data recording is playing a greater role for Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) and nowadays becoming an integral part of seismic offshore surveys. Ultra-long offset data acquisition is not technically possible with help of basic equipment – towed seismic streamers. Another kind of seismic recording equipment – Ocean Bottom Nodes (OBN) could be used for ultra-long offset surveys, but usually that kind of surveys turn out to be unproductive and economically unattractive in the majority of cases, especially in a deep water area environment. The main reason is that OBN technology and equipment initially were developed particularly for Common Depth Points (CDP) method reflections recording on near- and mid-range offsets, mainly in shallow water areas and in vicinity of a coast line. Existing concepts of robotized seabed seismic acquisition systems based on autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) inherit the majority of drawbacks typical for OBN (high costs, low production rate, blind data recording, etc.). Moreover, robotized seabed systems are not able to effectively spread over large areas due to low power-weight ratio. By contrast, Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (AUV) is a mature and well-established technology ready to become a missing link to make ultra-long offset data acquisitions agile, robust and affordable.