Prior ESTCP- and SERDP-funded projects have resulted in the successful development and demonstration of state-of-the-art vehicular and airborne towed arrays (the Multi-Sensor Towed Array Detection System, known as MTADS, and the airborne adjunct to this system) for large-scale unexploded ordnance (UXO) geophysical surveys. A significant component of these efforts was the development of a prototype Data Analysis System (DAS). This development was conducted in the Interactive Data Language (IDL) environment. The DAS software provided the utilities required for data reduction, physics-based target analyses, and generation of prioritized dig sheets. The MTADS airborne adjunct (AMTADS) development under ESTCP project MR-200031 required that these utilities position the data in three dimensions (3-D), incorporate the 3-D positions in the analyses, and convert the derived estimate of the vertical position of each target to depth below ground. The prototype DAS was used successfully in meeting the goals for the development and demonstration of the airborne MTADS. However, the prototype software posed obstacles with respect to commercialization of the airborne MTADS technology, because it required continuous support by key personnel involved in the original software development. Because the IDL programming environment is not commonly used by the geophysical community, initial training and long-term support for the prototype would require considerable expense and effort for potential commercial users of the system.

The objective of this project was to transfer the AMTADS DAS utilities to a commercially available geophysical data processing environment to facilitate the commercialization of the AMTADS technology. This environment, known as Oasis montaj™, is provided and supported by Geosoft Inc. and widely accepted by the geophysical community, including UXO service providers.

The AMTADS data processing methodology was successfully transferred to the commercially available Oasis montaj geophysical data processing environment. The resulting processing routines have been modularized so that the instrumentation-specific front end is separate from the site-specific routines. The original functionality of the MTADS software is maintained or improved. The Oasis-based software has successfully tested against the original MTADS software and has also been used on a number of wide area assessment demonstration projects.

These efforts will facilitate the commercialization of the airborne MTADS technology. Members of the geophysical community that are already proficient in working with data in Oasis montaj can now access site-specific processing and physics-based analysis routines for manipulation and analysis of magnetometry data, thus reducing the learning curve required for successful transition of the AMTADS technology. This environment also provides a mechanism for the long-term support of this software and eliminates the reliance on one or two key individuals for continued software development support.