Patent ID: 8544564

Claim:
An apparatus comprising an instrument hub that is inline with the drill pipe of a drill string and forms part of the drill string, the instrument hub being located at or above the surface of the Earth, wherein the instrument hub comprises: an elongate hub body having a tubular wall that is co-axially coupled at its opposite ends to a driven drill string component and an adjacent drill pipe section respectively, to transmit torque and rotation from the driven drill string component to the adjacent drill pipe section via the tubular wall when the driven drill string component is rotated; a fluid passage that extends lengthwise along the hub body, the fluid passage being in fluid flow communication at its opposite ends with respective openings in the driven drill string component and the adjacent drill pipe section to enable conveyance of drilling fluid from the driven drill string component to the adjacent drill pipe section through the instrument hub towards a drill bit positioned at a downhole end of the drill string; a wireless transmitter on the hub body to wirelessly transmit data representative of downhole communications to a data processor unit located above the surface of the Earth, while the drill string is in rotation; an antenna on the hub body to receive data processor communications from the data processor unit located above the surface of the Earth; instrumentation housed by the hub body to provide a wired pipe communications channel between the hub and downhole instrumentation in the drill string; and instrumentation housed by the tubular wall of the hub body to provide an additional communications channel between the hub and the downhole instrumentation, wherein the additional communications channel carries signals selected from the group consisting essentially of: mud pulse signals, acoustic signals, and optical signals.