The oil and gas industry, aerospace, and automotive industries are constantly pushing technology beyond their current operational boundaries, spurring the need for extreme environment electronics. The oil and gas industry, in particular, is the oldest and largest market for high-temperature electronics, where the operating environment can extend up to 260 degrees Celsius. The electronics currently employed in this field are only rated to 200 degrees Celsius, but with the rise of wideband gap technologies, this could be extended to 250 degrees Celsius or more without the needed for active or passive cooling. This reduces the complexity, weight, and cost of the system while improving reliability. In addition, current downhole telemetry data rates are insufficient for supporting more sophisticated and higher resolution well-logging sensors. Increasing the data rates can also save the industry significant amount of time by decreasing the amount of well-logging excersions and by increasing the logging speed.
Previous work done by this research group saw the prototyping of a high bit rate transceiver operating at 230 MHz - 300 MHz and 230 degrees Celsius; however, at these frequencies, the system could not meet size requirements. Thus, a new high-temperature high data rate transceiver design using the 2.4 GHz - 2.5 GHz ISM band is proposed to miniaturize the design and to allow for IC implementation. The transceiver was designed to meet the minimum specifications necessary to give designers flexibility between power consumption and performance. The performance of the design is simulated using AWR design environment software, which shows the system can support a downlink data rate up to 68 Mbps and an uplink data rate up to 170 Mbps across 10 channels. The effects temperature has on the system performance is also evaluated in the simulation. / Master of Science / The oil and gas industry is currently the largest and oldest market for high-temperature electronics. One of the major applications within this industry for high-temperature electronics is known as well-logging, during which a suite of sensors and systems is lowered into a well to survey the health and geology of the well. Among these sensors and systems, the communication system is one of the most crucial components as it relays real-time data back to the surface during the well-logging operation. Current high-temperature communication systems are capable of operating up to 200 ℃, meeting the operating requirements of current wells. As these wells deplete, however, new wells must be explored, and higher operating temperatures are expected. In addition, the communication systems currently employed fail to meet increasing data rate demands due to the growing complexity of the sensors.
Recent developments in semiconductor technologies have given rise to devices, which can increase the operating temperature of electronics up to 250 ℃ while meeting demands for high data rate communication systems. Previous work has leveraged these devices to prototype such a system; however, the proof-of-concept failed to meet size and weight restrictions of practical systems. Therefore, a new system design for a high-temperature high data rate communication system is proposed. The system operates at 2.4 – 2.5 GHz to miniaturize the circuits and make chip implementation possible. The impacts of temperature on the system are investigated and the system performance is simulated within its intended operating temperature range. Developments from this research can be extended to the automotive and aerospace industries, where demand for high-temperature electronics is growing.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/85006 |
| Date | 12 September 2018 |
| Creators | Kerrigan, Brannon Michael |
| Contributors | Electrical Engineering, Ha, Dong Sam, Yi, Yang, Lu, Guo Quan |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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