Higher quality data from a UAV

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Consistent delivery of superior quality data

Civilian Unmanned Air Vehicles typically deliver raw, or, processed data from both Aerial Surveillance and Geophysical Survey work.

Compared with manned aircraft, the UAV is able consistently to deliver superior quality data, since many UAVs can be used at the same time and can work together.

UAVs can fly day and night, slowly and safely, if need be, at low levels, closely hugging rugged terrain, precisely following a defined flight plan.

Unmanned Aircraft can provide better quality data

attribute	feature	comments
quality of raw data gathered by sensors on the Unmanned Aircraft	high data accuracy	several Unmanned Aircraft cover the same area, to enable identification of instrument errors, or, drift, with post processing, to reduce these inaccuracies precision flight path, closely following the terrain very low interference in the magnetic and gravity measurements, from the small Unmanned Aircraft low level night flight, when the disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field are at a minimum
	high data resolution	can use very high resolution ADCs, since the small Unmanned Aircraft introduces less field perturbations opto-isolation of sensitive circuits
	low data noise level	use many Unmanned Aircraft, to cover the same area N times to reduce the noise level by sqrt(N) fly slowly, to increase sensor integration times use specially designed Unmanned Aircraft, with very low payload vibration levels
	high spatial resolution	very low flying (20 m above ground level) scan separation = flight height, as low as 20 m use many Unmanned Aircraft, to create high resolution synthetic aperture receiver
survey time	on-time completion	back-up Unmanned Aircraft used for mission completion, even if some UAVs suffer systems failures
survey time	shorter survey duration	many Unmanned Aircraft, flying slowly to get high quality data, complete the survey sooner than a manned aircraft generating lower quality data
aerial surveillance area coverage		comprehensive, persistent, coverage resulting from the deployment of many Unmanned Aircraft
real time data		adaptive data rate relay links, with bit rates up to 2.5 Gbps, support real time data downloads

Unmanned Aircraft technology will contribute more accurate geophysical survey data

the potential for low level (20 m above ground) night flying (when disturbances to the earth's magnetic field and cultural noises are typically at their lowest and there are few civilian flights about) over what could be rugged terrain

the slow flying capabilities (down to 40 knots, or so) of the Unmanned Aircraft, allowing for data integration and consequent noise reduction
the very small perturbation the small, mostly carbon fibre, Unmanned Aircraft has on the surrounding magnetic and gravitational fields. The aircraft controls are in magnetically and electromagnetically shielded units and the units are themselves linked, using optical fibre technology
the ability to use several UAVs to cover the same survey area, so allowing for noise reduction through data averaging and the detection of any instrument drift
precision, computer controlled, navigation and flight control, using precision GPS, several Inertial Measurement Units and a responsive flight control system.

From James Macnae presentation at SEG 2006.

For Airborne ElectroMagnetic (AEM) surveys, the best time to perform the survey is from midnight to noon, ideal time for Unmanned Aircraft, especially at night, when there are few, if any, commercial flights around.