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DrillDocs
Darcy Presenter

CleanSight™ is a surface-based computer vision system on the rig's shale shaker that automates digital shaker surveillance, increasing an operator's understanding of their wellbore.

Published June 22, 2021 • Updated July 21, 2025
DrillDocs
Oil & Gas
Drilling
Subsurface
Insights
Details
Materials

Product Overview

Overview

DrillDocs offers the CleanSight® digital shaker surveillance solution, which provides automated real-time drilling cuttings characterization. Using a surface-based computer vision system installed at the rig's shale shakers, CleanSight® analyzes the quantity, size, and shape of cuttings returned during drilling, delivering unique insights into wellbore stability and cleanliness that support improved operational decisions.

Leveraging edge computing, the system delivers actionable insights via smart screens, EDR, and web portals, empowering drilling teams to remotely monitor the shale shakers, receive alerts, and make informed decisions efficiently.

The CleanSight solution also features “Unidentified Falling Object” detection, which alerts users to anything that doesn't have the size of a normal cutting (e.g. cavings or mechanical debris).

Future versions will apply the equivalent of facial recognition for rocks (based on size, shape, and volume) to help characterize UFOs and provide recommendations on potential remedial actions.

Business Model

DrillDocs employs a Product as a Service (PaaS) business model.

DrillDocs installs and rents the hardware (cameras, computers, and networking kit) and provides the computer vision software on a monthly or annual license fee basis.

Technology Innovations

CleanSight® introduces groundbreaking advancements in computer vision applied to cuttings and cavings measurement at the rig site, addressing gaps in wellbore stability management and borehole cleaning left by conventional methods like torque and drag modeling, LWD, and mud logging, which are often inaccurate, slow, and costly.

Key Innovations:

  • Industrialized Computer Vision: Deploys robust computer vision with deep learning to operate reliably in the hazardous environment of shale shakers.
  • AI Advancements: Progressed from image classification requiring human input, to more sophisticated AI-enabled models.
  • Enhanced Camera Technology: Incorporates digital cameras with integrated GPUs for edge computing, housed in enclosures designed for Div.1, Class 1 hazardous zones.
  • Unique Features: Detects and tags anomalous cuttings, labeled as "UFOs" (Unidentified Falling Objects), alerting the drilling team to potential wellbore cavings and unusual items like pieces of metal or elastomer that could indicate downhole equipment failure.
  • Future Development: Developing advanced image processing capabilities for detailed characterization of cuttings, including size, shape, and angularity.
Applications

Wellbore instability significantly impacts operational costs, safety, and environmental performance in complex onshore and offshore drilling. A lack of direct measurement of returning cuttings at the surface often prevents timely detection of nascent downhole issues, such as wellbore instability and poor hole cleaning. CleanSight® addresses this gap by providing qualitative and quantitative estimates of cuttings volume at the shakers in real time. This enables operators to assess hole-cleaning efficiency and detect cavings, supporting proactive decision-making.

Key applications include:

  • Shaker load & cuttings recovery rate measurement: Offers real-time estimates of shaker load and cuttings volume, size, and shape as a superior solution to manual observation and traditional methods like mud density-based Coriolis meters and sample weight-based cuttings flow meters. It enables monitoring of hole-cleaning efficiency, detection of cavings, and updates to hydraulic and cuttings transport models using cuttings size distribution (CSD).
  • Real-Time Situational Awareness: Leverages high-resolution optical cameras with edge computing for continuous monitoring, trend analysis, and anomaly detection, including shaker load estimates.
  • Wellbore Stability Monitoring: Enables early detection of cavings, a key indicator of wellbore instability.
  • Safety Enhancement: Reduces the need for personnel to enter hazardous zones and provides overflow spill alarms, improving safety during operations.
  • Offshore Specialization: Optimized for controlled offshore and onshore environments (e.g. Alaska), using explosion-proof industrial cameras that meet NEC, CEC, ATEX, IECEx, and INMETRO standards.
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Events

Better Than Buckets: Advancing Hole Cleaning with DrillDocs’ Automated Cuttings Monitoring

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Real-time Cuttings Analysis w/DrillDocs: Improving Wellbores

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