Robotic And Remotely Operated Geophysical Platforms For Terrestrial And Marine Uxo Detection

Two remotely operated geophysical platforms were deployed for terrestrial and marine unexploded ordnance (UXO) detection. The terrestrial system is a fully robotic system and the marine system is a remotely towed platform. The remotely operated geophysical UXO explorer (ROGUE) is a semi-autonomous robotic platform equipped with a Geonics Ltd. EM-61™ time-domain electromagnetic metal detector, a pair of GEM Systems, Inc. GSMP-30™ potassium magnetometer sensors, pan and tilt video camera and, tracked with real-time kinematic GPS (±2 centimeter accuracy). Both magnetometer and EM data, video, and GPS are simultaneously collected and transmitted via radio modems to a remote data acquisition center. Once the extents of the survey are input into the ROGUE command and control system the robot autonomously collects the geophysical data and transmits the data back to the command center in real-time. The marine geophysical system (ROHICA) consists of a non-magnetic vessel equipped with a magnetometer and differential GPS (± 0.5 meter accuracy) and a moored offshore barge for towing the geophysical vessel. The offshore barge has a set of four winches, two winches control the on-line positioning of the barge and two winches control the transport of the geophysical vessel down lines. Navigation for all marine vessels is controlled from the remote data acquisition system. The geophysical and positional data from the marine system are transmitted in real-time via radio modems to the remote data acquisition system.