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Micro Surveyor 1, an experimental aerial data collecting system. These pictures show some of the components used in the experimental micro survey system. All of the parts can be bought relatively cheaply off-the-shelf. A microcontroller can be used to link the sensors and control data logging. Software development and component interfacing is the difficult part of the project.
Large model aircraft with 1 kilogram or more payload capacity can be bought off-the-shelf. They are already being used for specialised aerial photography applications.
Figure 2 shows the navigation and data acquisition components of the system. A lightweight magnetometer or other required sensor(s) would be added to conduct a survey. All of the components shown weigh only 253 grams including batteries. Microcontroller technology is developing rapidly and replacing conventional electronics systems. Instead of designing and building electronic circuitry the engineer can program a microcontroller device much more quickly. Advanced devices can be programmed in a variant of the Basic language. While the accelerometer and pressure gauge (used as an altimeter) can be easily interfaced to a microcontroller, the flash card (used to log data) and the GPS receiver use proprietary and complex data signals making interfacing difficult. A good demonstration of the potential of unmanned aircraft for data gathering was provided by The Aerosonde, developed by Environmental Systems and Services of Melbourne, Australia. In August 1998, the Aerosonde traveled 3200km across the Atlantic, from Newfoundland to Scotland, in 26 hours. It used less than six litres of fuel and gathered meteorological data during the flight.
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