• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.150-161
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• 2018

Recently, unmanned aircraft EM (electromagnetic) survey based on ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has been widely utilized because of the efficiency in regional survey. We performed the theoretical study on the unmanned airship EM system developed by KIGAM (Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral resources) as part of the practical application of unmanned aircraft EM survey. Since this system has different configurations of transmitting and receiving loops compared to the conventional aircraft EM systems, a new technique is required for the appropriate interpretation of measured responses. Therefore, we proposed a method to calculate the EM field for the arbitrary shaped transmitter and verified its validity through the comparison with analytic solution for circular loop. In addition, to simulate the magnetic responses by three-dimensionally (3D) distributed anomalies, we have adapted our algorithm to 3D frequency-domain EM modeling algorithm based on the edge-FEM (finite element method). Though the analysis on magnetic field responses from a subsurface anomaly, it was found that the response decreases as the depth of the anomaly increases or the flight altitude increases. Also, it was confirmed that the response became smaller as the resistivity of the anomaly increases. However, a nonlinear trend of the out-of-phase component is shown depending on the depth of the anomaly and the used frequency, that makes it difficult to apply simple analysis based on the mapping of the magnitude of the responses and can cause the non-uniqueness problem in calculating the apparent resistivity. Thus, it is a prerequisite to analyze the appropriate frequency band and flight altitude considering the purpose of the survey and the site conditions when conducting a survey using the unmanned aircraft EM system.