Airborne Geophysics
Survey-grade GNSS/INS trajectory processing for airborne gravimetry, aeromagnetic surveys, LiDAR mapping, and radiometric exploration. Built on two decades of field experience across six continents.
Talk to an Expert →Why AlgoNav for Geophysics
Purpose-built GNSS/INS processing for the unique demands of airborne geophysical data acquisition, delivering the trajectory accuracy that geophysical sensors require.
Centimeter-Level Trajectories
Multi-constellation GNSS processing combined with tightly coupled IMU integration delivers centimeter-level position accuracy and arc-second attitude determination throughout entire survey flights, even over remote terrain far from base stations. The result is stable flight-line repeatability and lower cross-over mismatch between production and tie lines.
PPP for Remote Operations
Precise Point Positioning eliminates the need for local reference stations, enabling survey-grade accuracy in polar regions, open ocean, dense jungle, and developing countries where GNSS infrastructure does not exist and RTK corrections are unavailable. When stations are available intermittently, AlgoNav combines multi-base differential processing with PPP fallback for uniform accuracy across long blocks.
Robust Sensor Fusion
Advanced Kalman filtering and optimal smoothing algorithms fuse GNSS observables with high-grade IMU data to bridge signal gaps, reject multipath, and maintain trajectory continuity through banking turns and turbulence. Forward-backward smoothing and campaign calibration steps reduce drift and support low-noise motion estimates for gravity and magnetic processing chains.
Flexible Platform Support
Proven processing workflows for fixed-wing aircraft, turboprops, helicopters, and unmanned aerial systems. AlgoNav adapts sensor fusion parameters to the dynamics and vibration profiles of each platform type.
Applications
AlgoNav delivers the positioning backbone for a wide range of airborne geophysical survey methods, each with distinct accuracy and synchronization requirements.
Airborne Gravimetry
Gravity field measurements from aircraft demand the highest possible trajectory accuracy because GNSS-derived accelerations are used directly in the gravity reduction. AlgoNav provides precise trajectory determination for both scalar and strapdown airborne gravimetry, supporting gravity field recovery at milligal-level accuracy. The gravimeter workflow includes robust lever-arm and timing calibration, forward-backward smoothing, and low-noise vertical acceleration estimation for long-endurance flights. Our founder has over 20 years of hands-on experience in airborne gravimetry, including campaigns in Antarctica, Chile, Malaysia, and Australia, where extreme distances to reference stations and harsh environmental conditions push GNSS processing to its limits.
Aeromagnetic Surveys
Magnetic anomaly detection for mineral exploration requires sub-meter trajectory accuracy to correctly georeference total magnetic intensity measurements and compute accurate line-to-line leveling corrections. AlgoNav's tightly coupled GNSS/INS processing delivers the positional precision needed for high-resolution aeromagnetic mapping, whether flying drape surfaces over rugged terrain or constant-altitude regional reconnaissance lines. Magnetometer workflows benefit from consistent heading, timing, and boresight calibration support, plus cross-over consistency checks between production and tie lines. Reliable positioning directly improves the quality of magnetic anomaly maps used in geological interpretation and target generation.
Airborne LiDAR Surveys
Topographic mapping and vegetation analysis from airborne LiDAR platforms require centimeter-level positioning and precise attitude determination to correctly project laser returns onto the ground surface. AlgoNav processes GNSS/INS data from both fixed-wing and helicopter LiDAR platforms, delivering the trajectory accuracy that directly determines point cloud quality. High-accuracy trajectory solutions reduce the need for extensive ground control, lowering project costs while maintaining survey-grade vertical accuracy for digital terrain models and canopy height analysis.
Airborne Radiometric Surveys
Radioactive mineral prospecting and environmental monitoring rely on precise flight path georeferencing to correctly map gamma-ray spectrometer readings to their ground footprint. AlgoNav's trajectory solutions ensure that potassium, uranium, and thorium concentration maps are accurately positioned, which is critical for resource estimation, environmental baseline studies, and regulatory compliance. Consistent positioning accuracy across large survey blocks enables reliable data merging and multi-year comparison studies.
Challenges We Solve
Airborne geophysical surveys create positioning challenges that generic GNSS software cannot handle. AlgoNav was designed specifically to address them.
Long Survey Lines
Geophysical survey flights often extend over hundreds of kilometers and multiple hours, with base station distances well beyond typical RTK limits. AlgoNav maintains centimeter-level accuracy throughout extended flights by combining multi-base differential processing with PPP techniques, automatically managing ambiguity resolution and atmospheric modeling as GNSS conditions evolve along the survey line. For long-endurance missions of 6+ hours, processing includes bias-stability monitoring and smoothing over the full sortie to minimize drift and preserve cross-over consistency. This is essential for large-area gravity and magnetic surveys where consistent accuracy across the entire block determines data quality.
Vibration and Aircraft Dynamics
Turboprop engines, helicopter rotors, and turbulence introduce high-frequency vibrations and abrupt dynamic changes that can corrupt IMU measurements and degrade trajectory accuracy. AlgoNav's sensor fusion algorithms are specifically tuned to distinguish aircraft vibration from actual motion, using stochastic models calibrated for different platform types. This robust IMU processing ensures that trajectory accuracy is maintained without degradation, even during aggressive terrain-following flight profiles and steep banking turns.
Remote Area Operations
Many geophysical surveys operate in areas with no GNSS reference station infrastructure, from Antarctic ice sheets and Arctic tundra to tropical jungles and open ocean. AlgoNav's PPP processing enables survey-grade accuracy without any local base stations or RTK corrections, making it the essential positioning solution for expeditions in polar regions, offshore environments, and developing countries. When base stations are available, AlgoNav seamlessly combines multi-base differential and PPP solutions for maximum accuracy and seamless transitions across remote survey corridors.
Time Synchronization
Geophysical sensors such as gravimeters, magnetometers, and spectrometers record data on their own time bases, and accurate georeferencing depends on precise alignment between the GNSS/INS trajectory timeline and sensor timestamps. AlgoNav provides microsecond-level time synchronization and interpolated trajectory states at arbitrary epochs, ensuring that every geophysical measurement is correctly positioned in space and time. This precise temporal alignment is fundamental for data quality in all airborne geophysical methods.
Scientific Heritage
AlgoNav's geophysical survey positioning capability is grounded in decades of research and field experience at the intersection of geodesy and geophysics.
Global Field Experience
AlgoNav's founder, Dr. David Becker, has planned, executed, and processed airborne geophysics campaigns on six continents. From Antarctic traverses to equatorial survey blocks, this first-hand operational knowledge shapes every algorithm and workflow in the AlgoNav processing chain, ensuring that the software handles real-world conditions rather than just textbook scenarios.
Strapdown Gravimetry Expertise
Deep specialization in strapdown airborne gravimetry, where the full inertial measurement unit output is used for gravity field recovery instead of a dedicated scalar gravimeter. This approach requires the tightest possible GNSS/INS integration and the most rigorous trajectory processing, capabilities that are at the core of AlgoNav's technology.
Peer-Reviewed Publications
AlgoNav's methods and results are documented in peer-reviewed publications in leading geodesy and geophysics journals. This commitment to scientific rigor ensures that our processing approaches are validated, reproducible, and aligned with the state of the art. Explore our research publications for technical details.
Research Partnerships
Ongoing collaboration with universities and space agencies keeps AlgoNav at the forefront of GNSS/INS processing research. These partnerships provide access to cutting-edge sensor technology, global reference data sets, and independent validation opportunities that continuously improve the accuracy and reliability of our geophysical survey positioning solutions.
Explore with Precision
Whether you are planning a regional aeromagnetic survey, a gravity campaign in a remote environment, or a high-resolution LiDAR acquisition, AlgoNav delivers the trajectory accuracy your geophysical data requires.