Systems and methods for real time drilling fluid management

A method of determining a characteristic of a drilling fluid, comprising:

• conveying the drilling fluid to solids control equipment fluidly coupled to a borehole, the solids control equipment having an inlet and an outlet;
• generating a first output signal corresponding to a first measurement of the characteristic of the drilling fluid made with a first optical computing device arranged adjacent the inlet, the first optical computing device having a first integrated computational element configured to optically interact with the drilling fluid as it enters the solids control equipment;
• generating a second output signal corresponding to a second measurement of the characteristic of the drilling fluid made with a second optical computing device arranged adjacent the outlet, the second optical computing device having a second integrated computational element configured to optically interact with the drilling fluid as it exits the solids control equipment;
• receiving the first and second output signals with a signal processor communicably coupled to the first and second optical computing devices;
• receiving a compensating signal from at least one of the first or second optical computing devices, the compensating signal indicative of an intensity deviation of an electromagnetic radiation used for optically interacting at least one of the first or second integrated computational elements with the drilling fluid;
• and
• generating a resulting output signal with the signal processor, wherein the generating the resulting output signal comprises normalizing one of the first or second output signals with the compensating signal.

A system, comprising:

• solids control equipment fluidly coupled to a borehole and configured to receive drilling fluid from the borehole, the solids control equipment having an inlet and an outlet;
• an optical computing device arranged adjacent the outlet and having an integrated computational element configured to optically interact with the drilling fluid as it exits the solids control equipment and generate an output signal corresponding to a characteristic of the drilling fluid;
• and
• a signal processor communicably coupled to the optical computing device and configured to receive the output signal and provide a resulting output signal indicative of the characteristic of the drilling fluid, and further configured to normalize the output signal according to a compensating signal indicative of an intensity deviation of an electromagnetic radiation used for optically interacting at least one of the first or second integrated computational elements with the drilling fluid.