Distributed control system with failover capabilities for physical well equipment

A method comprising:

• operating a first piece of well equipment to perform a first physical task during a well operation at a wellsite;
• operating a second piece of well equipment to perform a second physical task during the well operation at the wellsite;
• operating a distributed control system that includes a first control unit coupled to the first piece of well equipment and a second control unit coupled to the second piece of well equipment, wherein the first control unit includes a first control module configured to automatically control the first physical task and a second control module configured to automatically control the second physical task;
• and
• detecting, by the distributed control system, a failure of the second control unit and automatically initiating a failover process in which the first control unit takes over control of the second physical task, the failover process involving enabling the second control module on the first control unit, wherein the distributed control system is configured to detect a resumption of the second control unit and automatically initiate a handover process in which the second control unit resumes partial control of the second physical task, wherein a remainder of the control over the second physical task remains with the first control unit.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising program code that is executable by a processor of a first control unit coupled to a first piece of well equipment, the program code being executable by the processor for causing the first control unit to:

• detect an event associated with a first physical task performable by the first piece of well equipment during a well operation at a wellsite;
• select an action to perform from among a plurality of actions based on the event;
• transmit a plurality of notifications about the selected action to a plurality of control units associated with a plurality of pieces of well equipment that includes a second piece of well equipment, the plurality of control units including a second control unit;
• receive a plurality of responses about the selected action from the plurality of control units, each response in the plurality of responses providing an indication of whether to proceed with the selected action;
• determine whether to perform the selected action based on the plurality of responses;
• detect a failure of the second control unit that is coupled to the second piece of well equipment configured to perform a second physical task during the well operation, the second physical task being different from the first physical task;
• and
• in response to detecting the failure, initiate a failover process in which the first control unit takes over control of the second physical task, the failover process involving switching a second control module of the first control unit from a disabled state to an enabled state, the second control module being usable in the enabled state to automatically control performance of the second physical task, and the second control module being different from a first control module included in the first control unit for automatically controlling performance of the first physical task by the first piece of well equipment.