Development of Low-Cost Unmanned Aerogeophysical System Based on Light VTOL Aircraft

DOI

10.2991/aviaent-19.2019.51How to use a DOI?

Keywords

unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV, aerial geophysics, VTOL, airborne magnetic prospecting, airborne gamma-ray survey

Abstract

The article describes the prospects and problems of creating low-cost unmanned systems for airborne geological prospecting of large areas with a simple topography. A novel electrically-powered unmanned aerial system (UAS) based on a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft was developed for low-altitude aerial geophysical surveying. The vehicle represents a 2.5 m flying wing with wing area of about 100 sq.dm with four engines for takeoff and landing and one thrust motor, max take-off weight is approximately 6 kg. The payloads are high-frequency fluxgate magnetometer, gamma radiometer, and optional solid-state LiDAR and multispectral cameras. To reduce electromagnetic interference from the thrust engine, the geophysical sensors are mounted at the winglets, and the marching engine located on the nose of the aircraft and shifted forward, not as usual with the flying wings. Magnetic and gamma-ray surveys are performed simultaneously, measurement frequency of magnetometer and radiometer is 10 Hz and 0.5 Hz respectively, which provides high density surveying. At a cruise velocity of 60-70 km/h and a flight time of over one hour, the unmanned system allows us to efficiently examine areas of up to several hundred square kilometers. The advantages of the created system include low cost price of the vehicle, possibility to decrease the survey altitude to record low-contrast geophysical anomalies without the risk to the aircrew, no need for special landing strip. Due to the low weight, in Russia the system falls within the scope of the Simplified Rules for lightweight UAV operations. The unmanned system can drastically increase the availability of geological and geophysical operations over vast areas with simple terrain and as such it is oriented towards replacing classical aerial geophysical surveying from plane and helicopter vehicles. The created system best corresponds to the challenges of geological prospecting on swampy and forested areas, including oil, gas and diamond-bearing provinces in the north of Eurasia, in Arctic region and offshore

Copyright

© 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Alexander Parshin
AU  - Aleksey Savin
AU  - Vladimir Morozov
AU  - Munko-Jargal Badmayev
PY  - 2019/11
DA  - 2019/11
TI  - Development of Low-Cost Unmanned Aerogeophysical System Based on Light VTOL Aircraft
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Aviamechanical Engineering and Transport (AviaENT 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 271
EP  - 276
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/aviaent-19.2019.51
DO  - 10.2991/aviaent-19.2019.51
ID  - Parshin2019/11
ER  -