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Abstract:
Airborne gravimetry is a well-established technique for measuring Earth’s gravity in remote areas using a gravimeter (traditionally based on a gyrostabilized platform) onboard an aircraft. In recent years, airborne gravimetry moves toward using strapdown inertial gravimeters instead of traditional ones. The former can be installed on small aircrafts/drones, which leads to higher spatial resolution of gravity data. Moreover, strapdown gravimeters have almost no limitations for using in harsh dynamic conditions, allowing the carrier to fly in drape mode over terrain of any complexity. Lomonosov MSU together with Aerogeophysica have developed the methodology of airborne gravimetry surveying with strapdown gravimeters onboard small aircrafts and UAVs. The methodology was tested in a number of surveys carried out in 2020-2022 with modern strapdown gravimeters (from iMAR and a domestic company) for geophysical applications. In the presentation the algorithms developed at Lomonosov MSU for postprocessing raw data from a strapdown gravimeter will be briefly described. We also present the results from recent surveys with a small aircraft flown in drape mode over the mountainous area. The surveys are characterized by extreme vertical accelerations up to 2.5g, which appears to be the first case in airborne gravimetry. Finally, we present the results from the surveys based on a helicopter-type UAV. We show that high-resolution gravity data of high accuracy can be obtained using the developed methodology and proposed algorithms (sub-mGal and 2-mGal rms accuracy for the UAV- and aircraft-based surveys, respectively, from the cross-over statistics).
