Apparatuses and systems for reducing power consumption in remote sensing applications

摘要

The system of the subject invention includes an antenna system, a surface apparatus and a battery-powered remote apparatus useful for applications such as well bore telemetry. In well bore telemetry, the surface apparatus is located uphole on the earth's surface and the remote apparatus is positioned at a remote location downhole in a well bore. The remote apparatus includes a sensor/transmitter unit for sensing physical characteristics such as pressure and/or temperature. The remote apparatus conserves power stored in its battery by transmitting change-in-pressure and/or change-in-temperature data that requires less power for transmission than absolute pressure and/or temperature data. The remote apparatus also conserves power by transmitting absolute pressure data in a single data frame and transmitting absolute temperature data in portions in a series of data frames. The remote apparatus can transition between initial time delay, fixed transmit sequence, sleep, operation, and test states based on its control program and/or based upon the transmission of control data from the surface apparatus. The surface apparatus receives a main signal from the remote apparatus and a reference signal from the antenna system and uses the reference signal to remove noise components from the main signal.