Mobility control for mobile drilling rig
AssigneeCaterpillar Inc.
InventorsStéphane Filion, David Moreau
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A mobile drilling rig is configured to drill boreholes into the ground about a drill site. To assist navigating the mobile drilling rig and other machines about the drill site, a material pile mapping system can be included that includes the borehole locations and an estimated material pile dimension associated with a material pile formed about the borehole from material removed during drilling of the borehole. The material pile dimension can be estimated from an estimated material pile volume of the material removed from the borehole.
Claims14
A mobile drilling rig for drilling a plurality of boreholes about a drill site, the mobile drilling rig comprising:
- a rig frame supported on a plurality of propulsion devices for travel about the drill site;
- a drill string that is extendable with respect to a mast mounted on the rig frame for drilling a plurality of boreholes into a surface of the drill site;
- a material pile mapping system comprising computer executable programming instructions and including:
- a borehole marking program for marking a borehole location for each of the plurality of boreholes, resulting a plurality of borehole locations;
- an electronic controller for calculating a borehole penetration length;
- a material pile estimation program for estimating one or more material pile geometric dimensions, including at least a material pile height and a material pile perimeter, based in part on (i) the borehole penetration length, (ii) a granularity associated with the material, and (iii) a borehole diameter of a borehole, the one or more material pile geometric dimensions associated with a material pile formed about each of the plurality of boreholes by material removed during drilling of the plurality of boreholes, resulting in a plurality of one or more material pile geometric dimensions;
- a map generation program programmed to generate a material pile map including the plurality of borehole locations for each of the plurality of boreholes and the one or more material pile geometric dimensions for each of the plurality of boreholes, and
- a mobility control system to navigate the mobile drilling rig about the drill site using the material pile map to avoid contact with the material pile.
A material pile mapping system for navigating a mobile drilling rig about a drill site comprising:
- a borehole marking program programmed to mark a borehole location of a borehole drilled into a drill site by a mobile drilling rig;
- an electronic controller for calculating a borehole penetration length;
- a material pile estimation program programmed to estimate one or more material pile geometric dimensions, including one or more of a material pile height and a material pile perimeter, based on (i) the borehole penetration length, (ii) a granularity associated with the material, and (iii) a borehole diameter of the borehole, the one or more material pile geometric dimensions associated with a material pile formed about the borehole by material removed during drilling of the borehole;
- and
- a map generation program programmed to generate a material pile map including the borehole location and the one or more material pile geometric dimensions, and
- a mobility control system to navigate the mobile drilling rig about the drill site using the material pile map to avoid contact with the material pile.
A method of operating a mobile drill rig comprising:
- drilling a borehole into a surface at a drill site with a drill string of a mobile drilling rig;
- marking a borehole location of the borehole at the drill site;
- calculating a penetration length of the borehole;
- estimating an estimated material pile volume of a material removed by drilling of the borehole, the estimated material pile volume estimated from (i) the penetration length of the borehole, (ii) a granularity associated with the material, and (iii) a borehole diameter;
- estimating a material pile geometric dimension including a material pile height and a material pile perimeter predicated on the estimated material pile volume,
- generating a material pile map including the borehole location and the material pile geometric dimension;
- and
- navigating the mobile drill rig about the drill site using the material pile map and the material pile geometric dimension therein to avoid contact with the material pile.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.