A Wireless Geophone Network Architecture Using IEEE 802.11af With Power Saving Schemes

Seismic surveys are conducted by oil exploration companies to keep up with the global demand for oil and gas. Although seismic cables offer fast and reliable data transfer, they account for a majority of the equipment weight, logistics, and labor costs. A novel wireless geophone network architecture, compliant with the IEEE 802.11af standard, is described. Operation in television white spaces can achieve long transmission ranges, allowing for scalable coverage of large seismic survey areas. Two methods for data collection are proposed: a Geophone-Polling (GP) scheme and an Adaptive Geophone Time Division Multiple Access Scheduling (AGTS) scheme. The two schemes are analyzed and evaluated in terms of the total time taken for data acquisition and the average power consumption, in comparison to the default IEEE 802.11 channel access schemes. The problem of hexagonal clustering for orthogonal deployment of geophones is also tackled, and the impact of co-channel interference is considered. The proposed schemes not only reduce data acquisition time, but also the average power consumption of the geophones, thereby improving the lifetime of wireless seismic surveys.