Unmanned aerial vehicles for rapid near surface geophysical measurements
Johannes B. Stoll · 2011
This paper looks at some of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) options and deals with a magnetometer sensor system which might be of interest in conducting rapid near surface geophysical measurements. Few of the traditional airborne geophysical sensors are now capable of being miniaturized to sizes and payload within man‐portable UAV limits (e.g. airborne magnetics, gamma ray spectrometer). Here the deployment of a fluxgate magnetometer mounted on an UAV is presented demonstrating its capability of detecting metallic materials that are buried in the soil. The effectiveness in finding ferrous objects (e.g. UXO, infrastructure) is demonstrated in two case studies.