The recent DWIS demonstration at NORCE’s Ullrigg Test Center from 2. - 6. March 2026 showed the unique capabilities and efficient workflow of OpenLab in practice. An important part of the successful demonstration at Ullrigg was the extensive use of OpenLab HIL both before and during the Ullrigg demo.

NORCE and partners of the DigiWells Innovation Program recently completed a successful field demonstration of the DWIS (Drilling and Wells Interoperability Standard) platform combined with autonomous drilling capabilities at the Ullrigg test center. OpenLab's unique Hardware-In-The-Loop (HIL) simulator was used extensively before and during this demo. You can read more about the Ullrigg demonstration here.

A key advantage of OpenLab is that it has the same control system and NOVOS setup as Ullrigg. This enables seamless movement between the two environments. The team first spent one week in OpenLab, then continued at Ullrigg, and switched between Ullrigg and OpenLab during the demo period. This made development, testing, and troubleshooting much more efficient.

The objective of this test was to demonstrate real-time interoperability between multiple vendor systems and validate DWIS as a common data infrastructure for drilling automation. The systems exchanged data through the DWIS Blackboard architecture, allowing applications to discover and use signals automatically. The Blackboard and technologies from different vendors were first connected in OpenLab with the NOV control system and NOVOS, before testing at Ullrigg.

The setup with OpenLab HIL with NOV and NOVOS provides a replica of Ullrigg that makes development, testing, and demonstration far more efficient. Much of the required work can be done in OpenLab before arriving at the test facility, and the same environment can continue to support the work during the field campaign. This combination of realism, interoperability, and flexibility is a strong example of how OpenLab helps accelerate the development of practical drilling automation solutions.

The Ullrigg demonstration involved contributions from multiple organizations and services, including NOV, Sekal, Halliburton, and NORCE, among others. The sponsors of the DigiWells Innovation Program are Aker BP, ConocoPhillips, Equinor, PetroBras, TotalEnergies, and Vår Energi.