Vehicular-towed magnetometer arrays have been used for munitions and explosives of concern (MEC) detection since the late 1980s. However, most vehicles are highly ferromagnetic due to their ferrous frame, skin, and drive train, and the resulting magnetic self-signature can easily overwhelm the signal from subsurface objects and render the data useless. Further, because the vehicle signature is induced by the Earth's magnetic field, it is not constant; it changes primarily with the vehicle's orientation relative to north, and secondarily with the vehicle's pitch and roll. Several successful vehicle- towed magnetometer arrays have addressed the vehicle signature problem through the use of custom-built nonferrous, aluminum-framed vehicles that minimize vehicle self-signature. However, the cost of these vehicles was in excess of $100,000, putting them out of range of commercial unexploded ordnance (UXO) contractors. The logical question is: Is this kind of expensive custom vehicle absolutely necessary to acquire high-quality towed array magnetometer data, or can a contractor employ a vehicle with a higher signature and filter out its effects. Under this project we tested a number of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) sideby- side utility vehicles (UTV) and an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) for their applicability as tow vehicles for a towed magnetometer array by measuring their magnetic signature and determining if the signature can be removed through simple filtering techniques to yield data of a similar quality to data obtained using a custom-built vehicle.
Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Vehicles for Towed Array Magnetometry
2009
75 pages
Report
Keine Angabe
Englisch
Transportation , Ammunition, Explosives, & Pyrotechnics , Physics , Contamination , Utility vehicles , Magnetometry , Towing vehicles , Towed arrays , Performance(Engineering) , Off the shelf equipment , Explosives , Costs , Electromagnetic induction , Global positioning system , Yield , Commercial equipment , Iron alloys , Mapping , Radiofrequency , Subsurface , Magnetic signatures , Unexploded ammunition , Real time , Detection , Magnetic properties , Magnetometers , Kinematics , Digital systems , Towed array magnetometry , Estcp(Environmental security technology certification program) , Dgm(Digital geophysical mapping) , Mec(Munitions and explosives of concern) , All terrain vehicles , Atv(All terrain vehicle) , Cots(Commercial off the shelf) , Magnetometer data , Mtads(Multi sensor towed array detection system) , Uxo(Unexploded ordnance) , Munition contamination , Vsems(Vehicular simultaneous electromagnetic induction and magnetometer system)