Demonstration of Helicopter Multi-Sensor Towed Array Detection System (MTADS) Magnetometry Technology at Victorville Precision Bombing Range, California

摘要

The former Victorville PBR is located in San Bernardino County, CA. This site is classified as a Formerly Used Defense Site, known to contain one precision bombing range target and one demolition bombing target area. This demonstration utilized Helicopter Multi-sensor Towed Array Detection System (MTADS) Magnetometry (HeliMag), a wide area assessment technology. Data collection was conducted in March-April 2006 resulting in the survey of 4,567 acres. The airborne MTADS platform was deployed at approximately 3 m AGL over the entire site, the system was also flown at 5 m and 10 m AGL over approximately 825 acres for each higher altitude. The purpose for these higher altitude flights was to assess whether the same information can be collected at a higher flight AGL. The background geologic signal complicated the use of automated target selection routines. After consideration of a number of candidate target selection/density estimate techniques it was determined that manual target selection provided the most realistic and defensible density distribution estimates; 6,319 anomalies were selected from the dataset.