Cameron introduces Cognition, a subsea BOP condition monitoring solution

May 22, 2014
Cameron announced two new products, the Cognition stack instrumentation infrastructure package, and EVO 300 Bonnet technology, at the 2014 Offshore Technology Conference.

Offshore staff

HOUSTON –Cameron (NYSE:CAM) announced two new products, the Cognition stack instrumentation infrastructure package, and EVO 300 Bonnettechnology, at the 2014 Offshore Technology Conference.

Meeting the industry’s growing need for condition-based monitoring and predictive maintenance, the Cognition package offers a new way to monitorsubsea blowout preventer (BOP) stack functions from the surface while the stack is deployed subsea. The Cognition package provides a network of new sensors; resilient communication paths to transmit sensor data to the surface; and the analytics, alerts, and alarms to turn the data into insights about the condition of the subsea BOP.

The Cognition package is composed of five main components:

  • An array of new sensorscapture data from the subsea BOP, including ram position, hydraulic fluid condition, stack accumulator bottle fluid volume, pressure and temperature, solenoid performance, and connector unlatch pressure.
  • A sensor interface box (SIB) aggregates data from 80-plus sensors to capture subsea stack operation data. Four SIBs each store Cognition package and BOP control system data, providing redundancy. 
  • Wireless stingers provide inductive data and power transfer between the lower stack and the LMRP. Removing metal-to-metal contacts results in more reliable long-term operation than traditional wet-mate connections.
  • Four redundant ways are available to transmit data from the subsea BOP to the surface, increasing data availability in an emergency. The data retrieval paths are: data-over-power via the main umbilicals, acoustic transducers, ROV connections, or via the system’s black box. The subsea black box records and stores three weeks of time-stamped data. In the event of an incident, the black boxes can be recovered by ROV for forensic data analysis.
  • The Cognition Knowledge Base provides advanced analytics, alerts, alarms, and reports that synthesize both real-time and historic BOP data into useful information. Using Cameron’s On Track system, Cognition Knowledge Base BOP information and information from other drilling equipment on the rig can be gathered and presented to the driller, as well as drilling contractor, operator, or Cameron personnel on the rig and onshore. 

In addition to the Cognition package, Cameron’s EVO 300 Bonnet technology addresses drillers’ need to shear stronger, thicker tubulars and to seal the wellbore.Building on Cameron’s proven EVO BOP technology, the new bonnet provides 54% greater ram closing force vs. earlier bonnets.

05/22/2014