Digital air gun
AssigneeReal Time Systems, Inc.
InventorsWilliam Allen Nance, Daniel Eugene Hobson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A marine air gun generates an acoustic signal in water, for example, during a marine seismic survey. The marine air gun includes digital electronic circuitry. The digital electronic circuitry may control an actuator of the marine air gun, digitize and store data from sensors located on or near the marine air gun, send and/or receive digital communications, store and/or output electrical energy, and/or perform other functions. A marine seismic source system that includes multiple air gun clusters may have a separate digital communication link between a command center and each air gun cluster. Each communication link may provide power and digital communication between the command center and one of the air gun clusters.
Claims17
A marine seismic system comprising:
- a sensor that detects conditions in or about a marine air gun submersed in water;
- the marine air gun comprising:
- a pressure release assembly that generates an acoustic signal;
- a digitizer that converts analog data from the sensor to digital data, the digitizer carried by the pressure release assembly and communicably coupled to the sensor;
- and
- a memory that stores the digital data, the memory carried by the pressure release assembly and communicably coupled to the digitizer.
A marine seismic system comprising:
- an array of marine air guns, each marine air gun including:
- a pressure release assembly that generates an acoustic signal in water;
- an actuator that moves to actuate the pressure release assembly in response to an electrical signal applied to the actuator;
- a digital electronic controller that controls the electrical signal applied to the actuator, the digital electronic controller and the actuator carried by the pressure release assembly;
- and
- a memory that stores data from sensors configured to detect conditions in or about the marine air gun, the memory carried by the pressure release assembly and communicably coupled to the sensors;
- and
- a central control subsystem communicably coupled to each digital electronic controller to send power and communications to the marine air gun.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.