High-Speed Magnetic Surveying for Unexploded Ordnance Using UAV Systems

Using Uncrewed Aerial vehicles (UAVs) to rapidly scan areas for potential unexploded ordnance (UXO) can provide an efficiency increase while minimizing detonation risks. We present a complete overview of how such mappings be performed using scalar magnetometers, including initial sensor testing, time stamping validation, data positioning, noise removal, and source model inversion. A test survey was across disarmed UXO targets, during which three magnetometers were towed in airframe (“bird”) 10 m below small (<25 kg) high speed (∼10 m/s) UAV avoid magnetic disturbances from the itself. Data collected ∼58 min flight, with each traversing ∼31.7 km acquire dense coverage 600 × 100 area. By individual bird, detection results single-sensor several different multi-sensor configurations compared. The obtained exhibited low apparent floors (on order tens picoTesla) retained precision that enabled targeted modelling removal high-frequency amplitudes ±5 picoTesla. All gradiometer tested recovery most targets (including all major targets), although horizontal configuration significantly worse comparison.