IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (2025) - Hangzhou, CHINA

SuMag: Suspended Magnetometer Survey for Mineral Data Acquisition with Vertical

Take-off and Landing Fixed-Wing Aircraft

Robel Efrem*, Alex Coutu**, Sajad Saeedi *

* Toronto Metropolitan University ** Rosor Exploration

Paper

What is the Project about

Multirotor Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAV)s have recently become an important instrument for collecting mineral data, enabling more effective and accurate geological investigations. This paper explores the difficulties in mounting high-sensitivity sensors on a UAV platform, including electromagnetic interference, payload dynamics, and maintaining stable sensor performance while in flight. It is highlighted how the specific solutions provided to deal with these problems have the potential to alter the collection of mineral data assisted by UAVs. The work also shows experimental findings that demonstrate the creative potential of these solutions in UAV-based mineral data collecting, leading to improvements in effective mineral exploration through careful design, testing, and assessment of these systems. These innovations resulted in a platform that is quickly deployable in remote areas and able to operate more efficiently compared to traditional multirotor UAVs while still producing equal or higher quality mineral data. This allows for much higher efficiency and lower operating costs for high-production UAV-based mineral data acquisition.

MagField.pdf

Fixed-wing manned aircraft total magnetic intensity mapped (left) vs VTOL fixed-wing UAV total magnetic intensity (right). These two figures show that the fixed-wing VTOL survey over the same area provides equal or better resolution data compared to the manned survey. This is achieved while being safer and more economical in comparison. Numbers surrounding the plot indicate Eastings and Northings with the compass indicating magnetic north

RatioComparison.pdf

Ratio-based comparison of the signal strength between the drone system and manned fixed-wing system (top), as well as subtraction-based comparison (bottom). Drone Total magnetic frequency as a ratio compared to fixed-wing total magnetic frequency is represented as a nanotesla reading and the subtraction-based method of the drone data set minus the fixed-wing data set is outputted in nanoteslas as well. Numbers surrounding the plot indicate Eastings and Northings with the compass indicating magnetic north.

Gallery

Videos

Take-off

This experiment demonstrates take-off with a suspended sensor payload.

Suspended Mag without empennage.mp4

Suspended magnetometer without empennage

Suspended Mag with empennage and central mount.mp4

Suspended magnetometer with empennage and central mount

Contact

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at the following email us at: robel.efrem@torontomu.ca