SBIR Phase I: FPGA-accelerated 3-D Waveform Inversion For Geophysical Exploration

这一小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目将研究高性能FPGA实现全三维地震波形反演（WFI）的可行性，这是当今石油和天然气行业中使用的最先进和资源要求最高的地震成像应用。WFI的目的是估计地球模型？最小化记录数据和来自迭代调整地球模型的合成模拟数据之间的差异。WFI的计算核心是非均匀介质中的三维波动方程。这个方程在梯度优化过程中反复求解，得到高精度的地震图像。第一阶段项目的可交付成果将是一种新颖的现场可编程门阵列（FPGA）实现，该FPGA实现了一种特别优化的WFI内核，其形式为符合插座要求的专用设备。在后续的第二阶段项目中，第一阶段交付成果将演变为WFI的原型全面实施，与传统硬件上的传统软件实施相比，性能将有数量级的改进。随着微处理器达到可达到的时钟频率和功耗的极限，石油和天然气行业越来越需要超越传统的计算机软件/硬件解决方案。该项目的广泛影响/商业潜力是在石油和天然气行业开创一个低影响、低能耗和高性能计算的新时代。FPGA计算很可能成为地球物理勘探的颠覆性技术，使能力和性能得到前所未有的提高。利用所提出的技术，三维地震数据将得到更快的处理，并更有效地用于描述和描绘极其复杂地质背景下的油气藏。此外，拟议的技术将使WFI在生产环境中。国内外石油公司最近宣布，他们的主要技术重点和关键要求是应对日益严峻的环境，这突显了对这种新能力的迫切需求。在这种情况下，FPGA实现的精确、更高分辨率和更快的地震成像将通过以下方式产生经济影响：（1）提高发现新的石油和天然气矿床的几率，（2）通过提供更高的成像精度来降低开采和开发成本，（3）增加回收的碳氢化合物的量，增加国家石油和天然气储量，减少对外国石油的依赖，并使美国经济受益。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will investigate the feasibility of ahigh-performance FPGA implementation of full 3-D seismic Waveform Inversion (WFI), themost advanced and resource-demanding seismic imaging application used today in the oil and gasindustry. The objective of WFI is to estimate a model of the Earth?s subsurface that minimizesthe difference between recorded data and synthetic simulated data derived from an iterativelyadjusted Earth model. The computational kernel of WFI is the 3-D wave equation in aheterogeneous medium. This equation is solved repeatedly in a gradient optimization processyielding highly accurate seismic images. The deliverable of the Phase I project will be a novelField Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) implementation of an especially optimized WFI kernelin the form of a socket compliant special-purpose device. In a continuation Phase II project, thePhase I deliverable will be evolved into a prototype full-fledged implementation of WFI,delivering order-of-magnitudes improvements in performance over conventional softwareimplementations on traditional hardware. As microprocessors reach the limits of attainable clockfrequencies and power consumption, there is a growing need in the oil and gas industry to gobeyond conventional computer software/hardware solutions. The proposed project addresses thisneed.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to usher in a new era of low impact,low energy, and much higher-performance computing in the oil and gas industry. FPGAcomputing is likely to become a disruptive technology for geophysical exploration, allowingunprecedented improvements in capability and performance. With the proposed technology, 3-Dseismic data will be processed faster, and used more effectively to characterize and delineate oiland gas reservoirs in extremely complicated geological settings. Furthermore, the proposedtechnology will enable WFI in production settings. The urgent need for this new capability ishighlighted by domestic and foreign oil companies' recent announcements that their maintechnological focus and critical requirements are for increasingly challenging environments. Inthis context, the accurate, higher resolution, and faster seismic imaging enabled by FPGAs willhave economic impact by: (1) improving the odds of finding new deposits of oil and gas, (2)reducing extraction and development costs by providing higher imaging accuracy, (3) increasingthe amount of hydrocarbons recovered, augmenting the national oil and gas reserves, reducingdependence on foreign oil, and benefiting the U.S. economy.