An onshore oil or gas field may spread over a large area e.g. 100km by 50 km. The safety and security of the in field workforce could be greatly improved by having the facility to locate and communicate with all personnel quickly and simultaneously.
GPS technology is ideally suited for this application but no existing equipment is available that is safe to operate around the oil wells (spark hazard in explosive environments) nor is it capable of simultaneous multicommunication (notification of impending emergency). S3 ID Ltd intend to rectify this situation by developing a long range locating system, using GPS-related technology, that is safe to use in the oil well areas and does not use Cellnet or Satellite phone communications. S3 ID Ltd has carried out proof of concept projects on this system which have shown that the communication problems of: safety in hazardous environments, longer range, simultaneous multiple communication and proof of battery life can be overcome, and these findings will be exploited in the ensuing project to develop a prototype system comprising the following key developmental objectives: a) a rechargeable tag certified ATEX Zone 1 (innovation) b) combined GPS/UWB tag (innovation) c) a base station UHF radio transceiver d) base station backbones directional VHF and UHF options, mains powered and solar/wind/battery options (innovation) e) large scale (2,000+ tag) operation, high speed communications protocol (innovation); and f) smart server software including self learning, archiving and trail retrieval (software innovation). The benefits include improving safety of personnel, reducing operational costs, and carbon footprint reduction by using wind and solar power.