Wide Area UXO Screening with the Multi-Sensor Fixed-Wing Airborne System MARS

摘要

This project is being conducted to demonstrate and certify a fixed- wing platform for deploying low altitude remote sensing technologies that can be used to help meet the increasing demand on the Department of Defense (DoD) for low-cost, high-resolution wide area assessment (WAA) of former and active military facilities contaminated with unexploded ordnance (UXO). The Minimum Altitude Remote Sensing (MARS) system can provide DoD the ability to characterize large sites cost efficiently, reliably, and safely. The MARS airborne UXO mapping system has been developed, successfully tested, and deployed in Europe by SeaTerra GmbH in Germany. Sky Research, Inc. (SKY) is demonstrating and certifying this system (Figure 1) for application in the United States (US) in partnership with SeaTerra. The integration of proven geophysical sensor technologies, deployed at low altitudes using sophisticated, commercially available, off-the-shelf light sport aircraft (LSA) technology, represents a novel and innovative solution for DoD to successfully execute geophysical mapping and UXO characterization at large sites. This demonstration plan addresses the first phase of the technology demonstration, deployment of the LSA with magnetic (MAG) sensors; a separate demonstration plan will be submitted for the second phase of the project, which, if funded, will integrate electromagnetic (EM) sensors with magnetic sensors for concurrent data collection.