Aero-Magnetic Survey

Design Requirements

Aeromagnetic survey has been used for decades to identify mineral deposits under the earths surface that might identify the presence of similar or correlating mineral or petroleum reserves. There are a number of issues that have, in the past, been identified as reducing the efficacy of using full scale crewed aircraft to perform these types of operations. Below we will describe some of the challenges of aeromagnetic survey and how they have been addressed with the ATMK012.

• The detectable variation in the earth’s magnetic waves is very subtle, and therefore difficult to sense at minimum safe altitude for full sized aircraft. Because of the size (under 55 lbs.) of small unmanned aircraft it is possible to fly at a fraction of the altitude. Because magnetic energy diminishes as a square of the distance, this alone would serve to increase the quality and resolution of data significantly.

• The sun has a dramatic influence on the earth’s magnetic fields. There fore it is standard to perform aeromagnetic survey when this effect would be less pronounced. The benefit of small unmanned aircraft is their ability to navigate at night when these effects would be most reduced.

• A standard practice of aeromagnetic survey is the use of redundant, reversed flight paths. These are used to identify and mitigate the effects of equipment on the aircraft hat might be influencing the data collected. This pattern could be programmed into “missions” further codifying the process used for reliable accurate aeromagnetic survey.