Patents by Inventor Thomas A. Dickens

Thomas A. Dickens has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20240092027
    Abstract: Determination device (2) for determining at least one parameter of an energy beam (4), in particular an energy beam (4) generated via an irradiation device of an apparatus (1) for additively manufacturing three-dimensional objects, which determination device (2) comprises two determination units (5, 6) arrangeable or arranged in succession in a beam path (3) of the energy beam (4), characterized in that each determination unit (5, 6) builds or comprises at least one complementary pattern element (15, 18, 21, 23, 24, 27, 30), wherein at least two pattern elements (15, 18, 21, 23, 24, 27, 30) of the two determination units (5, 6) complement each other to a superordinate pattern (32, 35).
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 27, 2023
    Publication date: March 21, 2024
    Inventors: Christian Dicken, Thomas Schulz
  • Patent number: 11287541
    Abstract: A method, including: determining, with a computer, point spread functions for a plurality of parameter locations by performing at least a portion of a first iteration of an iterative full wavefield inversion process; determining at least one property for each of the point spread functions; and evaluating a candidate survey design based on the at least one property for each of the point spread functions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 29, 2022
    Assignee: ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
    Inventors: William A Burnett, Martin J. Terrell, Pavel Dimitrov, Thomas A. Dickens, Yaxun Tang, Partha S. Routh, William Curry, Dennis E. Willen
  • Patent number: 10520618
    Abstract: A method for exploring for hydrocarbons, including: simulating a seismic waveform, using a computer, wherein computations are performed on a computational grid representing a subsurface region, said computational grid using perfectly matched layer (PML) boundary conditions that use an energy dissipation operator to minimize non-physical wave reflections at grid boundaries; wherein, in the simulation, the PML boundary conditions are defined to reduce computational instabilities at a boundary by steps including, representing direction of energy propagation by a Poynting vector, and dissipating energy, with the dissipation operator, in a direction of energy propagation instead of in a phase velocity direction; and using the simulated waveform in performing full waveform inversion or reverse time migration of seismic data, and using a physical property model from the inversion or a subsurface image from the migration to explore for hydrocarbons.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 20, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2019
    Assignee: ExxohnMobil Upstream Research Company
    Inventors: Tetyana Vdovina, Valeriy Brytik, John E. Anderson, Thomas A. Dickens, William Curry, Carey M. Marcinkovich
  • Patent number: 10459096
    Abstract: A method for iteratively inverting seismic data to jointly infer a model for at least P-wave velocity and attenuation parameters of the subsurface, the method including: jointly inverting the P-wave velocity and attenuation parameters with an iterative visco-acoustic full wavefield inversion process, wherein the iterative visco-acoustic full wavefield inversion process includes computing a gradient of an objective function, the objective function measuring a misfit between all or part of the seismic data and corresponding model-simulated seismic data; for each of the P-wave velocity and attenuation parameters, computing a search direction in model space from the gradient; determining line search step sizes ? and ? for the search directions for the P-wave velocity and attenuation parameters, respectively, wherein a ratio of the step sizes is a function of the P-wave velocity parameter; and using the step sizes ? and ? and the search directions for each of the P-wave velocity and attenuation parameters, computi
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 6, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 29, 2019
    Assignee: ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
    Inventors: Sirui Tan, Yaxun Tang, Anatoly I. Baumstein, Gboyega Ayeni, Tetyana Vdovina, Thomas A. Dickens
  • Patent number: 9910189
    Abstract: Method for rapidly computing updates to frequency-domain seismic wave fields by utilizing a matrix perturbation approach. The method speeds up model (e.g., velocity) parameter estimation by iterative inversion of measured seismic data. The method applies to the line search where the optimal size of the model update is estimated by testing different size updates to see which one generates the minimum objective function. By treating the model update as a perturbation, perturbation theory is used to relate the model perturbation to a corresponding wavefield perturbation. Thus, the Helmholtz equation is solved only once per iteration cycle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2018
    Assignee: ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
    Inventor: Thomas A. Dickens
  • Publication number: 20180017690
    Abstract: A method for iteratively inverting seismic data to jointly infer a model for at least P-wave velocity and attenuation parameters of the subsurface, the method including: jointly inverting the P-wave velocity and attenuation parameters with an iterative visco-acoustic full wavefield inversion process, wherein the iterative visco-acoustic full wavefield inversion process includes computing a gradient of an objective function, the objective function measuring a misfit between all or part of the seismic data and corresponding model-simulated seismic data; for each of the P-wave velocity and attenuation parameters, computing a search direction in model space from the gradient; determining line search step sizes ? and ? for the search directions for the P-wave velocity and attenuation parameters, respectively, wherein a ratio of the step sizes is a function of the P-wave velocity parameter; and using the step sizes ? and ? and the search directions for each of the P-wave velocity and attenuation parameters, computi
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 6, 2017
    Publication date: January 18, 2018
    Inventors: Sirui Tan, Yaxun Tang, Anatoly I. Baumstein, Gboyega Ayeni, Tetyana Vdovina, Thomas A. Dickens
  • Patent number: 9733371
    Abstract: In the present inventive method, individual traces of seismic data are migrated (41) without any assembling of different midpoints or any summing of different offsets, so that post-migration processing or analysis, e.g. trace alignment, may be applied to the individual migrated traces (42) to compensate for any deficiencies among them, before stack and assembly. Thus, the present invention fully separates the steps of migration (41), assembly (43), and stacking (44), which are combined together in traditional migration. Thus, imaging deficiencies can be measured and addressed in the image space before they are obscured by summation. Afterward, summation can proceed to construct the improved final image (45).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 15, 2017
    Assignee: ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
    Inventors: William A. Burnett, Andrew P. Shatilo, Thomas A. Dickens
  • Publication number: 20170176613
    Abstract: A method, including: determining, with a computer, point spread functions for a plurality of parameter locations by performing at least a portion of a first iteration of an iterative full wavefield inversion process; determining at least one property for each of the point spread functions; and evaluating a candidate survey design based on the at least one property for each of the point spread functions.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 7, 2016
    Publication date: June 22, 2017
    Inventors: William A. BURNETT, Martin J. Terrell, Pavel Dimitrov, Thomas A. Dickens, Yaxun Tang, Partha S. Routh, William Curry, Dennis E. Willen
  • Patent number: 9625593
    Abstract: The invention includes a method for reducing noise in migration of seismic data, particularly advantageous for imaging by simultaneous encoded source reverse-time migration (SS-RTM). One example embodiment includes the steps of obtaining a plurality of initial subsurface images; decomposing each of the initial subsurface images into components; identifying a set of components comprising one of (i) components having at least one substantially similar characteristic across the plurality of initial subsurface images, and (ii) components having substantially dissimilar characteristics across the plurality of initial subsurface images; and generating an enhanced subsurface image using the identified set of components. For SS-RTM, each of the initial subsurface images is generated by migrating several sources simultaneously using a unique random set of encoding functions. Another embodiment of the invention uses SS-RTM for velocity model building.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 13, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 18, 2017
    Assignee: ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
    Inventors: Ramesh Neelamani, Partha S. Routh, Jerome R. Krebs, Anatoly Baumstein, Thomas A. Dickens, Warren S. Ross, Gopalkrishna Palacharla
  • Patent number: 9524351
    Abstract: This disclosure relates to requesting content items of a web page, via a first request and a second request and responding to the requests. The server computer receives the first request from a client computer and responds to the first request by sending a plurality of default content items to the requesting client computer. The server computer receives the second request from the client computer and responds to the second request by sending a plurality of non-default content items to the requesting client computer. In one or more disclosed embodiments, the client computer stores the plurality of non-default content items in a cache. This disclosure also relates to parsing data in the cache.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2011
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2016
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Thomas Dickens, Manoj Sivakumar
  • Patent number: 9495487
    Abstract: Method for reducing the time needed to perform geophysical inversion by using simultaneous encoded sources in the simulation steps of the inversion process. The geophysical survey data are prepared by encoding (3) a group of source gathers (1), using for each gather a different encoding signature selected from a set (2) of non-equivalent encoding signatures. Then, the encoded gathers are summed (4) by summing all traces corresponding to the same receiver from each gather, resulting in a simultaneous encoded gather. (Alternatively, the geophysical data are acquired from simultaneously encoded sources.) The simulation steps needed for inversion are then calculated using a particular assumed velocity (or other physical property) model (5) and simultaneously activated encoded sources using the same encoding scheme used on the measured data. The result is an updated physical properties model (6) that may be further updated (7) by additional iterations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 15, 2016
    Assignee: ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
    Inventors: Jerome R. Krebs, John E. Anderson, Ramesh Neelamani, Charles Jing, David L. Hinkley, Thomas A. Dickens
  • Publication number: 20160223697
    Abstract: A method for exploring for hydrocarbons, including: simulating a seismic waveform, using a computer, wherein computations are performed on a computational grid representing a subsurface region, said computational grid using perfectly matched layer (PML) boundary conditions that use an energy dissipation operator to minimize non-physical wave reflections at grid boundaries; wherein, in the simulation, the PML boundary conditions are defined to reduce computational instabilities at a boundary by steps including, representing direction of energy propagation by a Poynting vector, and dissipating energy, with the dissipation operator, in a direction of energy propagation instead of in a phase velocity direction; and using the simulated waveform in performing full waveform inversion or reverse time migration of seismic data, and using a physical property model from the inversion or a subsurface image from the migration to explore for hydrocarbons.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 20, 2015
    Publication date: August 4, 2016
    Inventors: Tetyana Vdovina, Valeriy Brytik, John E. Anderson, Thomas A. Dickens, William Curry, Carey M. Marcinkovich
  • Patent number: 9207351
    Abstract: Embodiments described herein use stochastic inversion (460) in lower dimensions to form an initial model (458) that is to be used in higher-dimensional gradient-based inversion (466). For example, an initial model may be formed from 1.5-D stochastic inversions, which is then processed (464) to form a 3-D model. Stochastic inversions reduce or avoid local minima and may provide an initial result that is near the global minimum.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2015
    Assignee: ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
    Inventors: Thomas A. Dickens, Dennis E. Willen
  • Publication number: 20150293261
    Abstract: Method for rapidly computing updates to frequency-domain seismic wave fields by utilizing a matrix perturbation approach. The method speeds up model (e.g., velocity) parameter estimation by iterative inversion of measured seismic data (21-27). The method applies to the line search where the optimal size of the model update is estimated by testing different size updates to see which one generates the minimum objective function. By treating the model update as a perturbation, perturbation theory is used to relate the model perturbation to a corresponding wavefield perturbation (35). Thus, the Helmholtz equation is solved only once per iteration cycle (22).
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 13, 2015
    Publication date: October 15, 2015
    Inventor: Thomas A. Dickens
  • Publication number: 20150293246
    Abstract: A basically time-domain method for performing full wavefield inversion of seismic data to infer a subsurface physical property model (61), where however at least one quantity required for the inversion, such as the Hessian of the cost function, is computed in the frequency domain (64). The frequency-domain quantity or quantities may be obtained at only a few discrete frequencies (62), preferably low frequencies, and may be computed on a coarse spatial grid, thus saving computing time with minimal loss in accuracy. For example, the simulations of predicted data and the broadband gradient of the objective function may be computed in the time domain (67), and the Hessian matrix, approximated by its diagonal, may be computed in the frequency domain. It may be preferable to use time-domain and the frequency-domain solvers that employ different numerical schemes, such as finite-difference method, one-way wave equation, finite-element method (63).
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 12, 2015
    Publication date: October 15, 2015
    Inventors: Thomas A. Dickens, Sunwoong Lee, Yaxun Tang
  • Publication number: 20150063066
    Abstract: In the present inventive method, individual traces of seismic data are migrated (41) without any assembling of different midpoints or any summing of different offsets, so that post-migration processing or analysis, e.g. trace alignment, may be applied to the individual migrated traces (42) to compensate for any deficiencies among them, before stack and assembly. Thus, the present invention fully separates the steps of migration (41), assembly (43), and stacking (44), which are combined together in traditional migration. Thus, imaging deficiencies can be measured and addressed in the image space before they are obscured by summation. Afterward, summation can proceed to construct the improved final image (45).
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 2, 2014
    Publication date: March 5, 2015
    Inventors: William A. Burnett, Andrew P. Shatilo, Thomas A. Dickens
  • Patent number: 8965059
    Abstract: Method for efficient computation of wave equation migration angle gathers by using multiple imaging conditions. Common reflection angle or common azimuth gathers or gathers including both common reflection angles and common azimuth angles are produced as the data are migrated. In the course of either wave equation migration or reverse time migration, the pressures and particle motion velocities that need to be computed are sufficient to also compute the Poynting vector pointing in the direction of source-side (35) or receiver-side (37) wavefield propagation. From that, the reflection and azimuth angles can be computed (38). The seismic images can then be stored in the appropriate angle bins, from which common reflection angle or azimuth data volumes can be assembled (39).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 22, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 24, 2015
    Assignee: ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
    Inventors: Graham A. Winbow, Thomas A. Dickens
  • Patent number: 8923094
    Abstract: Method for using seismic data from earthquakes to address the low frequency lacuna problem in traditional hydrocarbon exploration methods. Seismometers with frequency response down to about 1 Hz are placed over a target subsurface region in an array with spacing suitable for hydrocarbon exploration (21). Data are collected over a long (weeks or months) time period (22). Segments of the data (44) are identified with known events from earthquake catalogs (43). Those data segments are analyzed using techniques such as traveltime delay measurements (307) or receiver function calculations (46) and then are combined with one or more other types of geophysical data acquired from the target region, using joint inversion (308-310) in some embodiments of the method, to infer physical features of the subsurface indicative of hydrocarbon potential or lack thereof (26).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2009
    Date of Patent: December 30, 2014
    Assignee: ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
    Inventors: Charlie Jing, Jim J. Carazzone, Eva-Maria Rumpfhuber, Rebecca L. Saltzer, Thomas A. Dickens, Anoop A. Mullur
  • Publication number: 20130191090
    Abstract: Method for reducing the time needed to perform geophysical inversion by using simultaneous encoded sources in the simulation steps of the inversion process. The geophysical survey data are prepared by encoding (3) a group of source gathers (1), using for each gather a different encoding signature selected from a set (2) of non-equivalent encoding signatures. Then, the encoded gathers are summed (4) by summing all traces corresponding to the same receiver from each gather, resulting in a simultaneous encoded gather. (Alternatively, the geophysical data are acquired from simultaneously encoded sources.) The simulation steps needed for inversion are then calculated using a particular assumed velocity (or other physical property) model (5) and simultaneously activated encoded sources using the same encoding scheme used on the measured data. The result is an updated physical properties model (6) that may be further updated (7) by additional iterations.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 8, 2013
    Publication date: July 25, 2013
    Inventors: Jerome R. Krebs, John E. Anderson, Ramesh Neelamani, Charles Jing, David L. Hinkley, Thomas A. Dickens
  • Patent number: 8428925
    Abstract: Method for reducing the time needed to perform geophysical inversion by using simultaneous encoded sources in the simulation steps of the inversion process. The geophysical survey data are prepared by encoding (3) a group of source gathers (1), using for each gather a different encoding signature selected from a set (2) of non-equivalent encoding signatures. Then, the encoded gathers are summed (4) by summing all traces corresponding to the same receiver from each gather, resulting in a simultaneous encoded gather. (Alternatively, the geophysical data are acquired from simultaneously encoded sources.) The simulation steps needed for inversion are then calculated using a particular assumed velocity (or other physical property) model (5) and simultaneously activated encoded sources using the same encoding scheme used on the measured data. The result is an updated physical properties model (6) that may be further updated (7) by additional iterations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 6, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 23, 2013
    Assignee: ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
    Inventors: Jerome R. Krebs, John E. Anderson, Ramesh Neelamani, Charlie Jing, David Hinkley, Thomas A. Dickens, Christine E. Krohn, Peter Traynin