Advanced Electronic Microsystems for Biomedical and Oilfield Instrumentation Applications

用于生物医学和油田仪表应用的先进电子微系统

• 批准号: RGPIN-2017-03718
• 负责人: Mintchev, Martin
• 金额: $ 3.06万
• 依托单位: University of Calgary
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=637596
• 关键词: Advanced; Electronic; Microsystems; Biomedical; Oilfield

The goal of my proposed research program is to study, design, implement, and test innovative advanced electronic microsystems for biomedical and oilfield applications, develop patent applications around them, and commercialize them as soon as these ideas mature enough to reach industrial applicability. My plan in the next 5 years is to research, develop and test two innovative electronic microsystems, the In Situ Lab Aid (ISLA), a new wristwatch-like device for painless, wireless, single-use blood analysis for early breast cancer screening; and a miniaturized, self-calibrating, mobile inertial microsystem for downhole navigation in lateral drilling from existing unproductive oil wells. The idea behind ISLA is quite innovative: after a blood sample is extracted with an in-plane MEMS actuator based on shape memory alloys (SMA), it is subjected to an immediate, intermittent interrogation in situ by a miniature high-intensity super-luminescent light emitting diode and the resulting fluorescence is recorded until the blood sample coagulates completely. The hypothesis is that these fluorescence data will be extremely useful for the early diagnosis of breast cancer. A recent (2015) study on blood fluorescence spectroscopy for breast cancer screening revealed the sensitivity and specificity of this approach to be 80.4% and 100%, respectively. Having a minimally-invasive, wrist-watch like device to perform this blood fluorescence test in situ will be a tremendous advancement in early breast cancer detection. In the area of inertial navigation in downhole oil and gas exploration, we recently suggested a radical new error-reducing approach using an innovative method called "In-Drilling Alignment" (IDA). My idea now is to apply the technique of IDA for lateral drilling from existing unproductive wells. The goal is to miniaturize the IDA setup to fit in a 12 mm by 100 mm enclosure, in which the IDA-required controlled mechanical motion for error compensation will be provided by the drilling fluid dynamics in the narrow lateral pipe itself. In addition, a relay-based wireless communication downhole is an essential part of this proposal and involves research on utilizing the existing downhole oil-drilling pipes as waveguides for xbee-based autonomous units optimally positioned within the pipes at their junctions (minimal distance of 10 meters between each xbee unit) and employing the ZigBee communication protocol. The benefits of the proposed approach are twofold: (A) unproductive oil wells could be re-explored laterally for adjacent oil or gas deposits, thus reducing the environmental impact of new well development; and (B) novel, wireless, and much faster communication of downhole measurements will be developed, which will be posed to replace the existing mud-pulse telemetry, an obsolete downhole data transmission technology based on creating pulses in the drilling mud by mechanical valves.

我提出的研究计划的目标是研究、设计、实施和测试用于生物医学和油田应用的创新先进电子微系统，围绕它们开发专利申请，并在这些想法成熟到足以达到工业适用性时将其商业化。我在未来5年的计划是研究、开发和测试两种创新的电子微系统：原位实验室辅助（ISLA），一种类似手表的新型装置，用于无痛、无线、一次性血液分析，用于早期乳腺癌筛查；还有一种小型化、自校准、可移动的惯性微系统，用于从现有非生产性油井进行横向钻井的井下导航。ISLA背后的想法非常创新：在使用基于形状记忆合金（SMA）的平面内MEMS致动器提取血液样本后，由微型高强度超发光二极管在原位立即进行间歇询问，并记录所得荧光，直到血液样本完全凝固。假设这些荧光数据将对乳腺癌的早期诊断非常有用。最近（2015）一项关于血液荧光光谱用于乳腺癌筛查的研究表明，该方法的灵敏度和特异性分别为80.4%和100%。拥有一种微创的、类似手表的装置来原位进行这种血液荧光测试，将是早期乳腺癌检测的巨大进步。在井下油气勘探惯性导航领域，我们最近提出了一种全新的减少误差的方法，即“钻孔对准”（IDA）。我现在的想法是将IDA技术应用于现有非生产性井的横向钻井。目标是将IDA装置小型化，使其适合12 mm × 100 mm的外壳，其中IDA所需的控制机械运动用于误差补偿，将由狭窄侧管中的钻井液动力学本身提供。此外，基于中继的井下无线通信是该方案的重要组成部分，包括研究利用现有的井下石油钻杆作为xbee自主装置的波导，将xbee自主装置最佳地放置在管道连接处（每个xbee装置之间的最小距离为10米），并采用ZigBee通信协议。该方法的好处是双重的：(A)可以对非生产性油井进行横向重新勘探，以获得邻近的石油或天然气矿床，从而减少新井开发对环境的影响；(2)新型的、无线的、更快的井下测量通信技术将被开发出来，取代现有的泥浆脉冲遥测技术。泥浆脉冲遥测技术是一种过时的井下数据传输技术，其基础是通过机械阀在钻井泥浆中产生脉冲。