Enders Anthony Robinson

Digital Revolution in Oil Prospecting Enders Anthony Robinson

Founded in 1861, Massachusetts Institute of Technology celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2011. On May 15, 2011, The Boston Globe newspaper published a special magazine recognizing 150 of the valuable contributions MIT has made in the worlds of technology, science, health care, culture, transportation, economics, and more. They represent 150 fascinating, fun, important, interesting, lifesaving, life-altering, bizarre and bold ways in which MIT has made a difference. Number 32 is "Drill, baby, drill. Back in the day, the techniques for finding new oil deposits were simple: Drill hole. If you didn't find anything, move over and repeat. In 1948, MIT researchers were among the first to apply modern scientific analysis to reports of seismic activity to create a chance above a "shot in the dark" in hitting pay dirt. Formalized as the Geophysical Analysis Group in 1952, the collaboration spurred the 'digital revolution' in oil prospecting."The success of reflection seismology in discovering petroleum depends upon the generation of accurate pictures of the interior of the earth. Digital signal processing (DSP) made such images possible. This success stimulated the adoption of techniques of digital signal processing in speech analysis, radar, sonar, non-destructive testing, navigation, medical instruments, economics and many other sciences. In due course, these applications led to development of the various types of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) chips that are universally present in today's world of communication, ranging from cell phones to spacecraft navigation. This book is written for people interested in obtaining a working knowledge of digital signal processing.