Patent ID: 8473435

Claim:
A method for operating an oilfield apparatus having at least one sensor for measuring a physical property corresponding to the operating of the oilfield apparatus, the method comprising: modeling discrete-valued and continuous-valued variables relating to the operation of the oilfield apparatus as a Bayesian Network having nodes for both discrete-valued and continuous-valued variables; using a Monte-Carlo approach to determine a plurality of sample vectors wherein the elements of each sample correspond to particular root variables in the Bayesian Network, and wherein determining the plurality of sample vectors comprises assigning, for a probability density function for each observed variable, samples that conform to a distribution of observed variables and as a function of uncertainty of the observed measurements; weighting the sample vectors using observed data from at least one of the at least one sensor for measuring a physical property to weight the sample vectors according to each sample vector's respective ability to predict observed data values; recalculating probability distributions of the non-observed values based on the weighted sample vectors; and using the recalculated probability distributions to perform an automated action in an oilfield equipment operation.