Dynamic calibration and properties investigation of the K-factor for LaCoste&Romberg airborne gravimeter

The heath scale factor (called K-factor) is the most important parameter that characterized the linear property for the LaCoste&Romberg airborne gravimeter. The K-factor is recalibrated by minimizing the difference between airborne data and upward continued surface data (external calibration) and by minimizing the errors at line crossings (internal calibration) respectively. The numerical tests show that the results of these two calibration methods are almost identical and the accuracy of the airborne gravity disturbance is improved about 0.2 similar to 0.4 mGal by using of the new K-factor. The internal calibration will be useful and valuable. Also, the dependence of the K-factor on the amount of the filtering applied to the data is discussed. It is shown that the gravity sensor may be a nonlinear system, namely the K-factor is seen to be dependent on the beam velocity. Keywords Airborne gravimetry, Airborne gravimeter, Filtering amount, Beam scale factor (K-factor)