One of the key demands of today’s industry is the monitoring of a process, in particular of its parameters. Measurement of various process parameters is commonly used for automatic control and is often used for making various reports during or after completion of process cycles. In addition to local monitoring of various process parameters, there is a prevalent need for data to be available online, independent of the place of collection. Online availability becomes an additional problem for remote measurement sites and at industrial installations that are not stationary.

One example of such a plant is a drilling station, where the plant is in one location but the people who operate the drilling are often in an office at a completely different location. Furthermore, drilling sites are usually situated outside of populated areas, where only wireless communication is possible. For these reasons the VEMOGS system for remote monitoring and management was implemented on one of the drilling sets of Nafta Geoterm.

VEMOGS system is designed to measure, display, store and to transmit measured data to the server that is on another location. Data transfer can be achieved through public GSM / GPRS network or over Wi-Fi or WLAN communication for the local connection to a computer.

Metering system includes parameters which are grouped into so-called Master Log:
• time & date
• depth [m]
• the progress of the drilling [m/min]
• load on the hook [t]
• load on the chisel [t]
• pressure mud pumps [bar]
• capacity mud pump 1 [l/min]
• capacity mud pump 2 [l/min]
• Speed ​​desk [rev/min]
• torsion [%]

The system of measurement, processing, storing and transmitting is controlled by hardware circuitry that enables all actions to be executed simultaneously. The transfer to the local portable computer and a remote computer takes place independently of each other, thus avoiding data in the transmission process due to a power failure or some other problem in the system.

VEMOGS remote monitoring system of drill sets is applied at Nafta Geoterm Company in Slovenia, where it is used to measure the depth of drilling, drilling progress, the load on the chisel, desk speed, pump capacity, pump pressure and torsion.

Necessary for this remote monitoring system:
• Remote station with equipment for measuring, collecting and transmitting data through communication equipment for GSM / GPRS, Wi-Fi and LAN communication,
• Pressure probe for measuring load, pressure probe for measuring torsion and pressure probe for measuring mud pumps pressure,
• Modules for powering the remote station and industrial panels
• Industrial panel (displays all measurement signals in the operational cabin, alarm alert at situations beyond the limits),
• Base station with a GSM modem, server unit, a computer software for remote system monitoring and managing,
• Portable computer with program for displaying and storing measurement signals and for setting parameters (sets default depth, maximum load, the diameter of hammering on mud pumps).