Combined Frequency Domain and Time Domain Airborne Data for Environmental and Engineering Challenges

ABSTRACT We describe the main properties of the EQUATOR airborne geophysical system and how the system can be employed to solve some engineering and environmental problems. To date, the EQUATOR system has been used for groundwater search in 2014 and 2015 in Siberia. The name “EQUATOR” originates from the intention to EQUATE, or to balance time and frequency domain approaches in airborne electromagnetics, which is why the system was originally designed. To the best of our knowledge, EQUATOR is the only system to collect electromagnetic data both in time and in frequency domains. We further explain the difference between the two methods on some numerical and field examples. Also we describe some advantages of their coupling. In particular, by virtue of our approach, a numerically more robust solution of the one-dimensional electromagnetic inverse problem may be achieved. The recorded full-time measurements are further converted to in-phase, quadrature and off-time responses, as opposed to standard frequency...