Nonlinear tight formation control of multiple UAVs based on model predictive control

A tight formation of unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs) has many advantages, such as fuel saving and deceiving enemy radar during battlefield entry. As a result, research on UAVs in close formation has received much attention, and the controller design for formation holding has become a popular research topic in the control field. However, there are many unknown disturbances in tight formation, and the tail aircraft is disturbed by the wake. This paper establishes a mathematical model of wake vortices for tail aircraft that considers uncertainty and strong interference. Two UAVs are simulated by Computational Fluid Dynamics software, followed by the design of a semiphysical simulation model predictive control(MPC) scheme that suppresses uncertainty and interference sufficiently to enable the tail aircraft to accurately track the lead aircraft and maintain a stable, tight formation. The tight formation controller is verified by numerical simulation and semiphysical simulation. The results show that the designed controller has an excellent control effect in the case of disturbance caused by the wake vortex.

A novel production data analysis method for multi-fractured horizontal wells with infill well-caused fracture interference

Tightening the well spacing for unconventional tight reservoirs is an efficient technique to enhance oil and gas recoveries.Infill well-caused fracture connection between wells is widely reported in the field with small well spacing.This will make it difficult to make formation evaluation and fracture characterization between wells compared to single well cases.In this paper,a novel production data analysis(PDA)method is proposed for fracture characterization with the consideration of interwell fracture connections after the hydraulic fracturing of the infill.The PDA method is based on a semianalytical model,in which the small-scaled fractures are treated with the concept of stimulated reservoir volume(SRV).Thus,the fracture connections between wells are classified into three types,including SRV,fractures,and both SRV and fractures.The physical model is discretized into several linear flow regions,so the mathematical model can be solved semianalytically.An integrated workflow is proposed to analyze the production data for the wellpad,and three steps are mainly included in the workflow,including PDA for the parent well before infill,PDA for the parent well after infill,and PDA for the infill well.In each step,the production performance in the early linear and bilinear flow regimes are analyzed with approximate solutions in the square and fourth root-of-time plots.Because only the relationship between unknown model parameters can be obtained with the approximate solutions,history matching to the production data in log-log plots is further used to determine each unknown parameter.The PDA method is benchmarked with a synthetic case generated by the numerical simulator tNavigator and a field case from Southwestern China.The results show that both good matches and precise parameters can be obtained with the proposed PDA method.The connected fracture number will not be sensitive in PDA when the wells are connected with high-conductive dSRV.The innovation of this paper is that a practical method is provided for PDA analysis of well groups with fracture connection,and it will be a good technique for fracture characterization and well-interference analysis for tight formations.

A numerical simulation study of CO2 injection for enhancing hydrocarbon recovery and sequestration in liquid-rich shales

Less than 10% of oil is usually recovered from liquid-rich shales and this leaves much room for improvement, while water injection into shale formation is virtually impossible because of the extremely low permeability of the formation matrix. Injecting carbon dioxide（CO2） into oil shale formations can potentially improve oil recovery. Furthermore, the large surface area in organicrich shale could permanently store CO2 without jeopardizing the formation integrity. This work is a mechanism study of evaluating the effectiveness of CO2-enhanced oil shale recovery and shale formation CO2 sequestration capacity using numerical simulation. Petrophysical and fluid properties similar to the Bakken Formation are used to set up the base model for simulation. Result shows that the CO_2 injection could increase the oil recovery factor from7.4% to 53%. In addition, petrophysical characteristics such as in situ stress changes and presence of a natural fracture network in the shale formation are proven to have impacts on subsurface CO2 flow. A response surface modeling approach was applied to investigate the interaction between parameters and generate a proxy model for optimizing oil recovery and CO2 injectivity.

Enhanced oil recovery by low-salinity water spontaneous imbibition (LSW-SI) in a typical tight sandstone formation of mahu sag from core scale to field scale

Accelerating mass exchange between matrix and fractures is the essence of enhanced oil recovery(EOR)in tight formations after natural depletion.Low salinity water(LSW)injection has been commerciallyproven in conventional reservoirs EOR,with scale projects in progress worldwide.There is,however,a lack of understanding of the EOR effect in tight formations.Therefore,in this work,we introduced LSWEOR to a target tight formation using huff-puff mode.Spontaneous imbibition(SI)tests were firstly performed on homogenous Berea sandstone cores with decreasing salinity brine to observe the production response.The results indicated that the oil recovery of the tight rock was boosted by tuning brine salinity.Of all the used brines with salinity ranging from 0.021%to 2.1%TDS(total dissolved salinity),the 0.21%TDS brine showed a rapid increase in oil production over imbibing time,which finally led to an incremental oil recovery of 4.5%OOIP(original oil in place).Core-scale modeling was conducted by history-matching the oil recovery dynamics of the SI results through modifying capillary pressure and relative permeability.A full-scale reservoir model was constructed using micro-seismic data to model fracture geometry combing fracturing results and scaling parameters obtained from core scale historymatching.It is proven that LSW huff-n-puff stimulated the oil production after natural depletion and improved MEE(mass exchange efficiency)of the target formation,but the EOR benefit was not comparable to CO2 and surfactant-assisted water huff-puff methods.

Fractal characteristic of microscopic pore structure of tight sandstone reservoirs in Kalpintag Formation in Shuntuoguole area,Tarim Basin

Using the fractal geometry method,the microscopic pore structures of tight sandstone reservoirs in Kalpintag Formation of Shuntuoguole area in Tarim Basin were conducted fractal characterization on the base of test analysis data such as physical property,cast thin section,scanning electron microscope and mercury injection,and the genetic mechanism of pore structure heterogeneity was investigated.The storage spaces are dominated by intergranular dissolved pore,intragranular dissolved pore and residual intergranular pore,and the throat type consists of the necking throat,lamellar throat,curved lamellar throat and tube-shaped throat.The microscopic structure type includes Type Ⅰ(fractal dimension≤2.350),Type Ⅱ(2.350<fractal dimension<2.580),Type Ⅲ(fractal dimension>2.580)and fracture type.The most favorable reservoirs with Type-Ⅰ microscopic pore structure are mainly distributed in the Upper Member of Kalpintag Formation,while the reservoirs with Type-Ⅱ and Type-Ⅲ microscopic pore structures are mainly in the Lower Member of Kalpintag Formation.The sedimentation controls the heterogeneity of microscopic pore structure,and the differences on composition and particle size of sandstone lead to differentiation of microscopic pore structures.The Lower Member of the Kalpintag Formation experiences stronger compaction and cementation but weaker dissolution than the Upper Member of the Kalpingtag Formation,and thus the microscopic pore structure of Upper Member of the Kalpintag Formation is significantly worse that of the Lower Member o the Kalpingtag Formation.The Upper Member of the Kalpintag Formation with high content of brittle mineral develops microscopic fractures due to tectonic rupture,thus the permeability is improved and the heterogeneity of microscopic pore structures is enhanced;but the Lower Member of Kalpintag Formation is characterized by attrition crushing of particles and strong compaction.