  A comprehensive characterization of the detection efficiency of nine of the
major asteroid surveys that have been active over the past two decades is
presented. The detection efficiency is estimated on a nightly basis by
comparing the detected asteroids with the complete catalog of known asteroids
propagated to the same observing epoch. Results include a nightly estimate of
the detection efficiency curves as a function of apparent magnitude and
apparent velocity of the asteroids, as well as a cumulative analysis to
estimate the overall performance of each survey. The limiting magnitude
distribution is estimated for each survey, and it is then modeled as a function
of telescope aperture to obtain an estimate over a wide range of apertures.
