The IEEE Northern Canada Section Antennas & Propagation Society and the Microwave Theory & Techniques Society (IEEE NCS APS/MTTS) joint chapter would like to invite you to attend the next installment of our invited talks.  Dr. A. Peter Annan, Chief Executive Officer, Sensors & Software Inc., Mississauga, ON, Canada, will be giving a presentation titled “Electromagnetics in Applied Geophysics”

Abstract

While the fundamentals are the same, the electrical engineering and geophysical worlds differ greatly in how the electromagnetic (EM) fields are used, viewed and analyzed. Geophysical EM methods are applied to map the earths’ subsurface structure varying from large continental scale studies of the Earth itself through to very high-resolution imaging of subsurface engineered infrastructure.
The instrumentation and deployment vary greatly but the basic steps are the same. The first is to obtain an estimate of the ground’s impulse response or transfer function at or above the surface of the medium. This entails specifically designed EM sensing instrumentation to be deployed, often in harsh environments. The resulting data are noisy, band limited and sampled at discrete points in space and time (or frequency). Next, the estimated response is used to construct a representation of the spatial distribution of subsurface electrical properties consistent with the observed response. Finally, the electrical property distribution is used in conjunction with any other available constraints to infer the source of the property distribution. There are many levels of complexity and uncertainty.
Canada has been the home for many applied geophysics developments. The field has attracted highly innovative engineers, physicists, and geologists who were often both entrepreneurial and controversial in character and who spawned numerous companies. Examples from these geophysical developments (often focused on the search for natural resources) are used to illustrate the challenges faced, the diversity of approaches used, and the unique character of EM in applied geophysics.

Biography

Peter Annan received the B.A.Sc. degree in engineering science and the M.Sc. degree in geophysics from the University of Toronto, Canada. He received the Ph.D. degree in physics from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada. He is currently CEO of Sensors & Software Inc., a GPR instrument company. He has a long history of pioneering GPR advancement including survey applications, instrument development, and product commercialization. He has extensive experience in geophysical survey design, operation and project management plus an active interest in airborne electromagnetic geophysical system design and commercialization.