Systems and methods for seismic data acquisition employing asynchronous, decoupled data sampling and transmission

#1. Field of Invention

#The present invention relates to the field of seismic data acquisition systems and methods of using same. More specifically, the invention relates to systems and methods for seismic data acquisition in which the seismic sampling is decoupled from data transmission using asynchronous digital signal processors for data sampling, and interpolation for synchronizing the sampling.

#2. Related Art

#The manner in which the objectives of the invention and other desirable characteristics may be obtained is explained in the following description and attached drawings in which:

#FIG. 1 illustrates a simplified plan view of a system of the invention;

#FIG. 2 illustrates schematically wireless communication between components of systems of the invention;

#It is to be noted, however, that the appended drawings are not to scale and illustrate only typical embodiments of this invention, and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope, for the invention may admit to other equally effective embodiments.

#In the following description, numerous details are set forth to provide an understanding of the present invention. However, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these details and that numerous variations or modifications from the described embodiments may be possible.

#As noted in the literature and on the Internet (see for example, the website of Prof. Bengt Oelmann, Mid-Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden, accessed Dec. 10, 2006) digital designs can be divided into synchronous and asynchronous circuits. The common timing reference called clock signal defines the synchronous designs. Consequently, asynchronous designs are those without a common timing reference. In the early days of digital design, design methodologies were not established and combinations of synchronous and asynchronous techniques were used. From the 1960s to the present, the usage and the development of synchronous circuits and methods achieved almost total dominance. When computers were first constructed, a few of them were fully asynchronous. Two examples are ORDVAC from the University of Illinois (1951-52) and later, MU5 from the University of Manchester (1969-74). But asynchronous techniques have later found their applications in places where synchronous techniques are not feasible. A typical example is high-speed communication over long distances, such in computer bus systems. UNIBUS in PDP-11 (1969) and VMEBUS (1980) are examples of such asynchronous buses.