Aeromagnetic Compensation in Gradiometry—Performance, Model Stability, and Robustness

Aeromagnetic compensation plays an important role in airborne magnetometry, and in particular, in gradiometer systems. Compensation deals with the modeling and elimination of interference effects generated by the maneuvering of the aircraft flying in the Earth's magnetic field. This letter discusses robustness and stability measures for the compensation model, and provides a perspective on the range of performance levels achieved in the compensation of typical gradiometer systems. While the vast majority of all commercial airborne magnetic work is carried out using optically-pumped magnetometers, the continuing advances in the adaptation of full-tensor superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) gradiometer technology to airborne exploration further emphasizes the importance of establishing systematic methods to evaluate the performance of compensation models.