Review on the Use of Light Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Geological and Geophysical Research
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ew on the Use of Light Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Geological and Geophysical Research I. M. Aleshina, S. D. Ivanova, *, V. N. Koryagina, M. A. Matveeva, Yu. A. Morozova, F. V. Perederina, and K. I. Kholodkova aSchmidt
Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 123242 Russia *e-mail: [email protected]
Abstract—The possibility of using a universal unmanned aerial platform for a wide range of geological and geophysical research is discussed. Various types of lightweight unmanned aircraft and related equipment are considered. The case of using copters for geological field research is considered. Recommendations for selecting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and avionics are given. Keywords: UAV, earthquake zones, structural geology, paleoseismology, geomagnetic survey, geological exploration DOI: 10.3103/S0747923920050035
INTRODUCTION The use of unmanned aircraft for solving various problems in the Earth sciences is becoming increasingly popular (Pajares, 2015; Firsov et al., 2015a, 2015b; Batotsyrenov and Beshentsev, 2018). On the one hand, ready-made solutions (unmanned aerial vehicles with installed measuring equipment), focused on specific tasks, e.g., magnetic prospecting, are available on the market. On the other hand, there is also a wide selection of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are not equipped with any sensors, which implies the installation of additional equipment, the choice of which is determined by the task at hand. In spite of the wide variety of such vehicles, only several specific classes of UAV with standard or customized onboard equipment are mostly used (see, e.g., Merlaud et al., 2020; Geological Survey..., 2020). This raises the question on whether it is possible to choose a universal unmanned platform for a wide range of geophysical and geological surveys. Such a system could be used as the base for comprehensive joint surveys carried out by researchers in different areas. NOMENCLATURE AND CLASSIFICATION OF UAVS The generally accepted terminology for unmanned aerial vehicles of various classes has not yet been fully established; however, in official documents, the term unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is used most frequently. This term will be used in this study. In addition to this, the terms unmanned aircraft (UA) (Fetisov et al., 2014), unmanned aerial system (UAS),
remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), and drone are also common. Despite the fundamental differences in the definitions, practically all UAVs have some elements of automatic control (e.g., a gyroscopic stabilizer) onboard and a fully functional onboard computer which allows the device to deliver a flight mission in the offline mode. At the same time, many aerial vehicles can be piloted remotely, even when they were originally designed to be fully autonomous. Also, in the case of multirotor UAVs, the terms often reflect the number of rotors used: quadrocopter, hexacopter, octocopter, etc. The terms drone and copter are common in the popular literature. The two most common UAV groups are helicopter and fixed-
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