Commercial-off-the-Shelf Vehicles for Towed Array Magnetometry
Abstract
Vehicular-towed magnetometer arrays have been used for MEC detection since the late 1980s. However, most vehicles are highly ferromagnetic, and the resulting magnetic self-signature can render the data useless. Several successful vehicle-towed magnetometer arrays have addressed the vehicle signature problem through the use of custom-built non-ferrous aluminum-framed vehicles which minimize vehicle self-signature. However, the cost of these vehicles was in excess of $100k, putting them out of range of commercial UXO contractors. The question is: Is this kind of expensive custom vehicle absolutely necessary to acquire high-quality towed array magnetometer data, or can a contractor employ a vehicle with a higher signature and filter out its effects? Under this project we tested a number of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) side-by-side utility vehicles (UTVs) by measuring their magnetic signature and seeing if the signature can be removed through simple filtering techniques to yield data of a similar quality to data obtained using a custom-built vehicle. We find that, with a properly selected vehicle and filter, a COTS vehicle can be used.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA520735
Entities
People
- Robert M. Siegel
Organizations
- Leidos