Aeromagnetic survey using an unmanned autonomous helicopter over Tarumae Volcano, northern Japan

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have recently drawn attention in various research fields for their ability to perform measurements, surveillance, and operations in hazardous areas. Our application is volcano surveillance, in which we used an unmanned autonomous helicopter to conduct a dense low-altitude aeromagnetic survey over Tarumae volcano, northern Japan.In autonomous flight, we demonstrated positioning control with an accuracy of approximately 10 m, which would be difficult for an ordinary crewed vehicle. In contrast to ground-based magnetic measurement, which is highly susceptible to local anomalies, the field gradient in the air with a terrain clearance of 100 to 300 m was fairly small at 1 nT/m. This result suggests that detection of temporal changes of an order of 10 nT may be feasible through a direct comparison of magnetic data between separate surveys by means of such a system, rather than that obtained by upward continuation to a common reduction surface. We assessed the temporal magnetic changes in the air, assuming the same remagnetising source within the volcano that was recently determined through ground surveys. We conclude that these expected temporal changes would reach a detection level in several years through a future survey in the air with the same autonomous vehicle.

Dynamics of Outgassing and Plume Transport Revealed by Proximal Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Measurements at Volcán Villarrica, Chile

“…Recent developments in drone technology (in terms of both physical capability and user‐accessibility) have been matched by a drive toward increasingly lightweight and compact sensor payloads, such that the resulting Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are rapidly becoming “go‐to” solutions for a wide range of volcanological applications. UAS are driving the greatest advances in those fields requiring either proximal measurements in extreme environments or large areal coverage, including lava flow mapping, constructing topographic models, and eruptive volume estimations (Darmawan et al, ; Favalli et al, ; Moussallam et al, ; Müller et al, ; Nakano et al, ; Turner et al, ), post‐eruption visual observation (Koyama et al, ), thermal imaging (Di Stefano et al, ), aeromagnetic surveys (Hashimoto et al, ; Kaneko et al, ), DOAS traverses for SO 2 flux determination, and volcanic gas measurements and sampling (Diaz et al, ; Di Stefano et al, ; McGonigle et al, ; Mori et al, ; Pieri et al, ; Rüdiger et al, ; Shinohara, ; Stix et al, ).…”

Real‐time compensation of magnetic data acquired by a single‐rotor unmanned aircraft system

“…Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are increasingly used for small-scale (<10 km 2 ) high-resolution magnetic surveys in part because they offer reduced mobilization time and operating costs compared to traditional manned airborne surveys (Funaki and Hirasawa 2008;Eck and Imbach 2012;Koyama et al 2013;Hashimoto et al 2014;Macharet et al 2016;Wood et al 2016;Malehmir et al 2017;Cunningham et al 2018;Parshin et al 2018;Parvar et al 2018) and offer faster * E-mail: loughlin.tuck@carleton.ca data collection at lower cost per kilometer than ground surveys (Parshin et al 2018). The interference generated by the UAS on the recorded magnetic data is a major impediment for further penetration into the commercial market.…”

UAV magnetometry for chromite exploration in the Samail ophiolite sequence, Oman

“…Magnetometers can be deployed on satellite, airborne, sea-borne and terrestrial platforms. Recently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) were used as platforms for magnetic surveys (Hashimoto et al 2014;Parvar 2016;Cunningham 2016;Wood 2016). UAV magnetometry requires a careful consideration of payload integration, UAV magnetic impacts, and sensor orientation.…”