This document provides an overview of TETRA applications in the oil and gas industry. It discusses key communication system requirements for the industry such as reliable coverage, high reliability given safety and financial risks, and quick response times for tasks. It also outlines how TETRA supports important applications like automatic vehicle/personnel location tracking, task force management, and safety of field personnel. Total cost of ownership is emphasized as an important factor for communication systems in the industry.

1. TETRA Applications in Oil & Gas Industry
for special technical industry session at
EUROCON 2007
Tero Pesonen*, Kalle Marttila†
* EADS Secure Networks/Helsinki, Finland
†
EADS Secure Networks/Helsinki, Finland
Abstract—TETRA provides a multipurpose service platform
that meets the most stringent security and availability III. COMMUNICATION SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS IN OIL AND
requirements both for voice as well as data communication. GAS INDUSTRY
Usage of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems
enables significantly increased efficiency in the field work. A. Coverage
The TETRA Enhanced Data Service (TEDS) further In Oil and Gas industry coverage is mission critical. It
emphasizes the use of data within the industry sector. is the fundamental prerequisite for any communication to
take place. Coverage has to be available in areas related to
I. INTRODUCTION oil or gas production including along the pipelines,
complex refinery areas and administrative sites.
This document is intended to provide quick overview to Fundamentally the base station sensitivity and signal
TETRA and more specifically to applications benefiting reception mechanisms determine the possible coverage
from TETRA in Oil and Gas industry segment. The area.
document serves best as an introduction to the field.
Therefore instead of references hints to further readings B. Reliability
are provided. Due to the possible environmental and financial
The structure is the following. What TETRA is has consequences if anything goes wrong, the Oil and Gas
been very briefly explained first. Then a quick glance is industry has especially high demand for reliability. In
given to the main operational requirements of the Oil and order to build any processes – be it related to safety or to
Gas Industry. After that the most essential application business – the communication means have to provide
categories are introduced with links to TETRA specific confidence.
services. The final two chapters before further readings The most vulnerable sub-system is the base station
concentrate on the integration possibilities and further transmission network. Ring or loop protection type of
developments of the TETRA technology. transmission architecture is one of easiest way to increase
overall system availability and reliability. After that the
II. WHAT IS TETRA switching architecture and fault tolerance increase in
TETRA – Terrestrial Trunked Radio – is a digital radio significance. Over the system lifetime the technical
communication standard defined by ETSI for professional elements designed for telecommunications typically
use. provide significantly longer lifetime than their
The TETRA standard defines four interfaces, air counterparts from the IT world.
interface being the most important one. The other
interfaces are the inter-system-interface (ISI), direct mode C. Response times
interface for infrastructure independent communication The communication system needs to function in quasi-
and the peripheral equipment interface (PEI) for real-time in order to enable command based task
connecting external devices with a TETRA mobile station. management in wide area or data communication in
The standard covers voice and data services including controlling production process
group and individual communication, emergency calls as At the moment the reliability and response time
well as status and short data messaging and IP packet data benchmark is in the hybrid architecture where the
connections. Security and reliability are designed for millisecond critical information is transmitted over
mission critical use. synchronous transmission links where as the semi-time
The TETRA user segments range from military via critical information is transmitted in the packet mode
public safety and utility users including oil and gas to backbone.
transport and further down to single site factory
communication systems. D. Telecontrol
Oil and Gas belongs to process industry that usually
operates in a very wide area. Furthermore, it consists of
numerous interdependent sub-systems that need to be
controlled and adjusted in relation to each other. In order
to control the production network importance of tele-

2. control can hardly be underestimated. The communication B. Automatic Vehicle/Person location
system needs to provide means for reliable control TETRA standard has been amended with Location
message traffic as well as integration of control systems. Information Protocol (LIP) that is a standardized way to
request and deliver location information over TETRA.
E. Personnel safety
Commonly the location is obtained using GPS receivers.
As Oil and Gas are inherently hazardous substances as The advanced TETRA terminals have it readily integrated.
well as many times the production conditions are Location information as such increases personnel
especially demanding personnel safety issues grow in safety, helps to organize logistics and much more, but it
importance. The communication devices shall not increase really starts showing benefits when it is amending other
danger or burden – instead they are required to enable safe advanced TETRA system functionalities helping to
and efficient operational methods and means for obtaining combine the person, vehicle or vessel with the location,
help immediately when necessary. time and task – provided that taskforce management is
F. Environmental conditions used – and object – requires RFID or barcode tags - into
one. Then many compulsory documentation duties related
Oil and gas production is concentrated in certain areas to inspections and maintenance can be fully automated.
that often are either very hot and dry such as Arabian gulf Post evaluation and performance indicator creation
or extremely cold such as Siberia. The communication become significantly easier.
system and the terminal devices need to be able to survive
reliably in such conditions. C. Task force management
G. Security Task force and in more general resource management
over TETRA benefits from the combination of status, SDS
Oil and gas are vital for world economy. The and IP packet data services.
production process is vulnerable. Thus no threat can be
Status messaging is best suited for the personnel to
taken lightly. The communication system needs to ensure
inform the dispatcher on their situation. Also the most
privacy and integrity of the information as well as have
common assignments can be easily delivered using status
means to detect service denial attacks such as jamming.
messages. For delivering work orders short data service
H. Total cost of ownership message – such as text message – is better suited as it
allows free text input. If the assignment requires further
Communication system is one tool among others to instruction a well perceived method is to include a WAP
ensure safe and reliable oil and gas supply. As an (Wireless Application Protocol) push message. This
investment it has to prove itself not only as the enables the receiver to fetch required further information
communication tool, but also through its impact and with the terminal integrated WAP browser that in turn
contribution in other areas. Therefore calculating only low uses the TETRA IP data.
capital cost would be too simplified even though this has
been very often the case. More weight should be put on In order to optimize the routine tasks and introduce pre-
the Total Cost of Ownership calculation as this is finally filled electronic forms directly to TETRA terminal JAVA
the price the end user ends up paying. based applications provide a convenient and easily
customized solution.
D. Database queries
IV. APPLICATIONS
With database queries the need to carry plenty of
A. Telemetry applications documentation on the field can be avoided. With database
access the personnel on the field receive information of
TETRA offers versatile possibilities for wireless sensors or subsystems. The same mechanisms can be used
measurements and control solutions. to create on-line order or documentation forms to manage
The over 32 000 status values provide foundation for for instance spare part stock levels.
collecting discrete data or provide simple control The queries can utilize Status, SDS or IP data. In the
commands anywhere within the coverage area. Statuses most capacity optimized solutions query form is
are very efficient as they fit into a half slot of the air implemented using JAVA into TETRA terminal and the
interface frame and for the same reason their transmission JAVA application utilizes the best suited delivery
duration is very short. mechanism at any given time.
More complex data is transmitted as short data – similar
to text messages or as packet data. E. Surveillance and sensoring
The higher the level of integration and the more For security and control purposes it is necessary to
standardized the data is, the more efficient and install sensors, motion detectors and surveillance cameras.
compressed data delivery mechanism can be used. On the With long distances wired connections become costly, and
other hand IP packet data offers the greatest flexibility as they are vulnerable to environment and malicious activity.
it acts as a pure bearer service. They are also very static. TETRA provides alternative
Best suited telemetry terminals are the TETRA data wireless connection. TETRA Release 1 Packet Data is
modems that are specifically designed for integration to well suited and quite efficient transport layer for alarm
sensors, drivers and logics as well as to meet the information as well as still images- However, for live
environmental conditions. video streaming already TETRA Release 2 TETRA
Enhanced Data Service (TEDS) is required. TEDS is well
suitable for triggered video transmission. This is going to
be the area where TEDS will bring a huge improvement in

3. allowing the quick and reliable field implementation of
surveillance and sensoring solutions.
V. INTEGRATION
Despite of TETRA being a universal service platform
and providing excellent tools for creating applications
over the air interface the benefits fall short unless the
whole chain of services is considered. Therefore the
integration to the enterprise systems is vital for gaining the
efficiency and productivity increase benefits.
TETRA standard does not define standard interface for
application or control room integration. Thus integration is
always vendor dependent.
Successful integrations nevertheless show some key
characteristics. All functions can be performed through
one Application Programming Interface (API). The API
provides access to entire network eliminating for instance
the need to multiple application connections to every
switching element. The API is well documented and
preferably provides possibility to use commonly known
interface programming methodologies such as XML.
Considering the success and fail of application projects
the seriousness of integration is visible.
VI. TETRA DATA FUTURE
The future of TETRA data is secured by the
development of the TETRA Enhanced Data Service
(TEDS). TEDS is part of the TETRA Release 2
standardization. It is a technology rather similar to WiMax
using adaptive modulation and turbo coding. It has been
defined for 25, 50, 100 and 150 kHz carrier bandwidths
providing data speeds well comparable with GSM/GPRS.
Most of TEDS variants will provide at least 10 fold
multiplies of the data capacity compared to the TETRA
Release 1 single slot packet data. This is most of all
significant when mission critical data demand increases,
but there is shortage of available frequency spectrum.
TEDS is backwards compatible with TETRA Release 1
including the cell sizes. For at least one vendor TEDS can
be introduced as a mere software upgrade to the existing
base stations. The commercial availability of TEDS has
been forecasted to be in 2009 by EADS, who was the 1st
to demonstrate TEDS live in TETRA World Congress
2007 in Madrid.
FURTHER READINGS
[1] ETSI TETRA standards , www.etsi.org
[2] TETRA Association, www.tetramou.com
[3] EADS TEDS white paper, www.eads.net/tetra
[4] K.Heikkonen, T.Pesonen, and T. Saaristo, “You and your TETRA
Radio”, Edita, www.itpress.biz