Imaging of Oil-Well Perforations Using UWB Synthetic Aperture Radar

Ultrawideband (UWB) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) as a tool for oil well perforation monitoring is experimentally investigated in this paper. Experiments are conducted on a lab prototype that emulates the small section of an oil well. Oil well perforations are scanned using the designed UWB radar system for different experimental conditions. High-resolution images in both down-range and cross-range are obtained by using UWB pulses and signal processing. High-quality images are constructed using SAR processing algorithm with the proposed modifications. Experiments are carried out for different perforation conditions such as open, partially clogged and fully clogged cases. It is shown by the experiments that the proposed radar technique and the data processing methods are capable of providing more revealing high-quality images. This approach can be applied effectively to monitor the oil well medium and detect well impairment locations.