Global positioning system (GPS) signals cannot be received underground, so the oil/gas industry uses magnetic navigation while drilling boreholes to reservoirs. The current state-of-the-art magnetic reference models used today cannot account for the rich spatial and rapid temporal variations of the external magnetic field. These variations are among the largest sources of error for directional drilling companies.
Measuring local magnetic fields using magnetometers can be prohibitively expensive or practically impossible. Flatiron’s Virtual Observatory (VirtualOBS) technology will drastically reduce the magnetic field uncertainty in a cost-effective way. VirtualOBS combines a global model which provides the large-scale behavior of the external magnetic field to real-time measurements from satellites and ground stations to provide local corrections to the global model.
Comparison of Virtual Observatory predictions with measured data at Barrow, Alaska during the March 17, 2015 geomagnetic storm
User Friendly Interface
Aesthetically appealing and easy-to-navigate.
"Flatirons-AI" Backbone
Flatirons machine learning algorithms are powering the Virtual OBS
Spike Notification
Get email notification on any spike events on observatory
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Virtual OBS run without any interruptions 24x7
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Faster, stable, secure and completely isolated
Data Download
Download data from each observatory in a convenient way