Airborne Gravimetry
The
detailed structure of the earth’s gravity field and its temporal
variations are important for many scientific and economic applications
(e.g. exploration purposes, geophysics, geoid determination).
In order to guarantee this wide field of use a measurement system for
the determination of this gravity data should be on the one hand
accurate, reliable and with a high resolution on the other hand also
efficient and independent of the area of operation. In comparison and
in extension to satellite based and terrestrial methods the principle
of airborne (vector-) gravimetry seems to be an optimal solution to
determine the significant regional gravity changes.
The
fundamental equation of airborne gravimetry is Newton’s second law of
motion. In an inertial coordinate frame the kinematical acceleration a
(= second time derivative of the position x) can be computed by the sum
of specific force f and gravity g.
Therefore an integrated system for airborne gravimetry can be
implemented using GNSS observations in order to calculate the kinematic
acceleration and inertial measurements for derivation of specific
forces.
Together with two other
research institutes and two private companies we are member of the
GEOTECHNOLOGIEN program funded (jointly) by the Federal
Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The project "Development of Airborne
Gravimetry using GNSS satellite observations" belongs to the
research theme 2 of this program "Observation of the system earth from
space.
The most important goals
of the project are:
 |
Determination of the
regional gravity field in the range of 1 to 50 km
|
|
Development of GNSS
based airborne vector gravimeter with an accuracy of 1 mGal (10-5m/s2)
with a spatial resolution of 1 km
|
|
Comparison of different
sensor systems and processing methods
|
|
Opening of new
application area in earth seciences und exploration based on
increased performance and efficiency of airborne gravimetry
|
System Design
Flight
Experiments
Point of contact: Prof. Bernd Eissfeller
|
