Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Gravity & Magnetic Data Acquisition
We have recently joined forces with Juniper Unmanned, a Golden Colorado-based company to provide ultrahigh-resolution drone-based surveys for abandoned well and pipeline location services.
Juniper Unmanned is a premier operator of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) with advanced sensing technologies. Juniper Unmanned provides premier drone solutions for commercial, federal, state, and military organizations. The company integrates best-in-class aircraft with the most advanced sensors. When combined with Juniper’s engineered processes, advanced software, and analytics, clients receive unparalleled data and actionable intelligence to provide solutions and improve their business.
We initially worked with Juniper in the fall of 2019 on several well location projects in northern Colorado. During this process, we found that the data acquired using their Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) could be further enhanced by our advanced processing techniques to image previously un-mappable well and pipeline signatures.
Utilizing this synergistic approach, we are now offering well and pipeline location services to local, regional, and state agencies tasked with the identification and remediation of abandoned wells and pipelines. In addition to governmental agencies, private sector environmental consultants and developers are prospective clients for this ground-breaking technology.
At the core of this process are the UAS and geophysical equipment used for data acquisition. Geometrics, Inc. of San Jose, California has been the leading manufacturer of magnetometers since they invented the first commercially available unit back in the 1970’s. Their most recent breakthrough was the development of a miniaturized laser-pumped magnetometer with integrated GPS that has allowed the overall size of a system to be reduced by more than an order of magnitude.
Juniper Unmanned utilizes several models of UAS, matching specific flight characteristics to specific sensors and tasks. For our well location surveys, they are acquiring data using a DJI 600 Matrice drone, which is a six-rotor helicopter-type aircraft.