survey equipment

Archaeological research has become interdisciplinary with geophysics providing an increasingly important tool. In most situations this is conducted at ground level but owing to the sensitive nature of the Nazca site the main application of geophysics will be via a range of remote sensing tehnologies:

Photography and photogrammetryLidarRadiometric, gravimetric, eletromagnetics, aeromagnetics

Photography is the obvious starting point and here the ability to make passes at low level is very important. Being on site for several months the airship will be able to take advantage of the optimum light conditions at certain times of the day to obtain the best images of the shallow drawings. Lidar - Light Detection and Ranging - is particularly valuable with a terrain that has so few distinguishable three-dimensional features. A lasar emitter-receiver unit pulses at 100,000 times per second to build a highly accurate terrain model.

Lidar, such as the Optech 3100EA

system, can cover up to 500-600 linear km in a day. Two GPS units work in unison with an IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) to monitor the airship's position/attitude.