Hi Dan, Sounds like you have been discussing things with Mr. Rumsfield and his employees. One thing about GPS though ... it comes in different flavors. I'm retired now, but while I was on active duty we had GPS units that would be accurate to one meter. I've found most civilian units do not give very accurate readings. Matter of fact I found this out the hard way in Central America. I don't think it is still imposed, but I thought there was some sort of Government imposed deviation in the triangulation calculations for the civilian GPS receivers. I believe that newer civilian units supplement the satellite information with ground based information to give a more accurate position fix. As for the rest of your idea ... I think it would work for object of a specific size or larger. If you decide to implement this plan I would certainly like to know the outcome. Best of Luck Tom Kilcrease PS I wonder what the budget would look like for the operation? ----- Original Message ----- From: dvail Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2002 4:15 AM To: 'Meteorite-list Meteoritecentral' Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Sand Dunes and Meteorites Ok, A little more on my idea of how to search for meteorites in relatively high contrast, low noise areas like sand dunes. I realize that they won't be as easy to automatically recognize as a 10 foot diameter shinny black fusion crusted meteorite in the middle of an Antarctic ice field. However I do believe the following method will work and it would be fun! Low cost ultra miniature UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle) sometimes called MAVs (miniature aerial vehicle) are hand launched and belly landed and have a range of about 50 miles. They can fly at an altitude of a few feet to 1000 feet. They can be either battery or liquid fuel powered (aerosol can). On board is a microcontroller, 4 mega-pixel digital camera, GPS receiver, and 5 GHz 802.11a wireless LAN Interface capable of transmitting 104 megabits per second. The wireless LAN Interface is used for video transmission, streaming real-time telemetry and remote control. Remote control can be preformed in real-time by a person operating a laptop with remote control software comprised of a video window and a 3d topo map showing the real-time GPS position of the UAV and standard aeronautical controls (graphically simulated sticks, indicators and gauges) The laptop computer is connected to an 802.11a access point with an attached pitch and rotation controlled directional high gain parabolic antenna positioned at a pre-selected strategic high ground line of site vantage point. The UAV control program running on the laptop can be configured to automatically execute a standard systematic grid search pattern or an out and back modified grid/radial pattern planed around the range characteristics of the UAV. During the execution of the search pattern the laptop records a series of overlapping snapshots stamped with GPS coordinate, UAV spatial orientation, date/time, and other pertinent information. A pixel-pattern discrimination program reviews the snapshots (Photoshop on steroids). The program allows the user to graphically select targets from a database of object photos and parametric deviation criteria. The object database contains key information on each photographed object in the database. The pixel pattern selection algorithm is adaptive and can adjust itself based on various prevailing conditions such as atmospheric, meteorological, light, shadow, time of day, spatial orientation. It selects suspects. Suspect targets are manually reviewed at high resolution. A larger, more sophisticated UAV with a steerable zoom camera can be dispatched to the GPS coordinates for a closer look at an interesting target. At that point, if things look good I think it would be ok to hop in the old dune buggy (local land use laws permitting) and have a look. This method could be refined and improved with practice to perhaps find meteorites in lower contrast higher noise areas. Dan Vail
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