Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for performing directional drilling. An example method can include receiving, by a surface controller, a well plan for performing directional drilling of a wellbore; receiving, by the surface controller, an estimate for at least one drilling parameter that is based on a model of a bottom hole assembly (BHA) configured to perform directional drilling of the wellbore; and determining, by the surface controller, a steering force and a weight-on-bit (WOB) for drilling the wellbore, wherein the steering force and the WOB are based on the well plan and the estimate for the at least one drilling parameter.

Abstract: Techniques for controlling a trajectory of a mud motor directional drill are disclosed. A system receives one or more inputs pertaining to constraints for a wellbore in a mud motor drilling operation. The system constructs, as a function of the one or more inputs, a discretized well depth horizon. One or more binary slide and rotate commands for controlling a directional drill within the wellbore is generated based on an analysis of the discretized well depth horizon. The system controls the directional drill according to the one or more binary slide and rotate commands.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for performing closed loop, fully autonomous directional drilling using a drilling and steering system. An example method can include receiving, by a surface controller, a well plan for performing directional drilling of a wellbore; determining, based on the well plan, a first drilling instruction for directing a drilling and steering system to drill the wellbore; sending the first drilling instruction to a downhole controller that is coupled to the drilling and steering system; receiving at least one sensor measurement from a downhole sensor that is associated with the drilling and steering system; determining, based on the well plan and the at least one sensor measurement, a second drilling instruction for directing the drilling and steering system to drill the wellbore; and sending the second drilling instruction to the downhole controller that is coupled to the drilling and steering system.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject technology relate to systems and methods of controlling a drill string having a steerable bit when drilling a wellbore through a substrate. A deterministic model of a directional behavior of the drill string is developed that includes a drill string state, one or more drill parameters associated with the drill string, and one or more substrate parameters associated with the substrate. A stochastic differential model of the directional behavior of the drill string is then developed by replacing the state and each of the parameters of the deterministic model with respective probability distributions and adding feedback. The stochastic differential model is reduced to a truncated stochastic model by substituting a predetermined number of terms of a generalized polynomial chaos expansion for each probability distribution and then evaluating the expectations.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject technology relate to systems and methods for improving mud motor trajectory controls. Systems and methods are provided for receiving control data from a mud motor trajectory controller, predefining a plurality of control modes based on the control data from the mud motor trajectory controller, achieving desired slide rotate ratios and toolface angles by solving an established objective function that mathematically represents operational preferences and system constraints for a selected control mode of the plurality of control modes, generating a modulation procedure that converts the slide-rotate ratios to a binary slide and rotate control sequence, and applying the modulation procedure to generate the binary slide and rotate control sequence.

Abstract: A well path for a directional drilling device may be updated by determining a perturbation for a new well path from a current bottom-hole assembly position to a target using the initial well plan (or any well path of reference) as a reference. An initial well plan may be determined for a directional drilling device along with a current actual borehole position of a drilling device along with other parameters such as attitude. With this, a perturbation to the well plan based on the current actual borehole position of a drilling device and a subterranean target maybe determined. Based on this perturbation an updated borehole path may be determined.

Abstract: A method of drilling tendency estimation including receiving, at a processor, one or more directional sensor measurements from a drilling tool disposed on a drill string, processing, at the processor, the one or more directional sensor measurements to determine an actual wellbore trajectory over a defined interval, and identifying, at the processor, a set of directional disturbance parameters by optimization of the actual trajectory of the drilling tool, steering inputs, and/or a set of pre-defined directional disturbance parameters of the drilling tool.

Abstract: A drilling optimization method including perturbing one or more drilling control parameters with a periodic or a stochastic signal during a drilling process, estimating at least one drilling performance measure to optimize the drilling process based on the perturbed one or more drilling control parameters, perturbing the at least one drilling performance measure with a periodic or a stochastic perturbation source through demodulation, determine a next best estimate of the one or more drilling control parameters to optimize the at least one drilling performance measure, perturbing the next best estimate by a periodic or a stochastic perturbation source through modulation, and feeding the perturbation next best estimates of the one or more drilling control parameters back to the drilling process.