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Hello all,
I know that I am not the rocket
scientist here & this may be an oversimplified theory but I have a picture
of my house & my fathers house taken from a satellite in orbit. Now I may be
wrong but I kinda think that if someone is going to go to the trouble of putting
millions of dollars of equipment into orbit that they would include thermal
imaging as part of that inventory. Here is my thought, in the evening, at dusk
when the desert floor is no longer being heated by the sun wouldn't the sand,
plants & surrounding landscape cool off faster than the darker colored rocks
(meteorites) with iron content? And if the meteorites did cool slower or have a
higher temp because of their darker color couldn't we print out a GPS based list
of these thermal hot spots?
This is just an idea considering that the
technology I think is there is probably classified & we could never gain
access to it anyway.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2002 1:11
AM
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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