Noise Cancellation Method for Mud Pulse Telemetry Based on Discrete Fourier Transform

Abstract

Mud pulse telemetry (MPT) systems are widely recognized for their effectiveness and are most commonly used to transmit downhole data to the surface in real time. These data facilitate the drilling process and make it more cost-efficient. In MPT, the mud channel presents a challenging communication environment, primarily due to various sources of noises, with pump noise being the most dominant. In this paper, a noise cancellation method based on discrete Fourier transform (DFT) is proposed for demodulation under a low signal-to-noise ratio, eliminating the pump noise generated by two pumps with a single sensor during drilling. The method employs DFT to estimate the noise spectrum, subtracts noises from the received signal, and performs an inverse transformation to reconstruct the original signal estimation. The effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated through a simulation analysis and field experiments. The simulation results indicate that the major components of multiple pump noises could be successfully eliminated. The field experiment results demonstrate that the demodulation of the received data achieves advanced data rate communication and a low bit error rate (BER) in a 3000 m drilling system.

Keywords

• mud pulse telemetry
• discrete Fourier transform
• multiple pumps
• noise cancellation
• signal extraction