Advanced drone technology to streamline demining

The magnetic technology on board the drone can identify landmines and unexploded ordnance on land and at sea much more effectively than traditional demining using handheld detectors. Umag Solutions, a DTU spin-out company, has developed ultra-precision drone magnetometer technology to document areas that traditional demining operations cannot or take a month to cover in just a few days. Did.

DTU’s CEO and co-founder of Umag Solutions Arne Døssing Andreasen has opened up a whole new demining opportunity not only in many rural areas, but also in the coastal areas where World War II landmines are scattered and causing problems. It explains that it will open. When installing a submarine cable from an offshore wind farm.

“Traditional demining vessels cannot detect bombs near the shore because they cannot operate in shallow waters. This can be done with drones that can detect smaller objects than previous techniques,” Arne Døssing said. Andreasen.

Umag Solutions’ drone system operates from a height of 30 cm above the surface to a depth of 10 meters, from which a magnetic sensor (magnetometer) detects very small spatial fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field. Researchers can then clean up magnetic background and system noise recordings and use vast amounts of data in colormaps to identify subtle underground magnetic anomalies. These deviations can be due to changes in metal objects, underground minerals, rocks, or soil conditions.

Remove ammo from World War II

Since its inception in 2018, Umag Solutions has worked primarily with clients and businesses in Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany and Denmark. Most tasks are performed in the offshore industry, where Umag Solutions removed ammunition and objects from World War II in areas where wind turbines were to be built. In other Nordic countries, the company has either mapped a tidal surface several kilometers wide or solved the task of a Danish defense demining operator. In a project with DanChurchAid’s demining unit, the operator demonstrated that the technique can detect unexploded Russian mines with low magnetism. Cluster bomb.

Recently, Arne Døssing attended a meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy. There, the ambassador is interested in using Umag Solutions technology for demining in Ukrainian ports and fields. Drones can also be an alarm system. In a current research project, Umag Solutions is investigating whether drones combined with machine learning can provide live data, allowing the Danish army to use the system when checking for land mines and roadside bombs at sea. ..

Research on drone technology

DTU runs research projects on drone technology development, but also projects that use drones as research tools. In connection with drone technology, DTU researchers work in areas such as drone control, precision navigation, and the development of sensors and measuring instruments. High-precision navigation is an important prerequisite for many drone applications, especially when multiple drones work together or for measurements that require high precision.

DTU researchers are using drones, for example, as a supplement to manned aircraft. As such, drones are being used to explore Tibetan glaciers, and work is underway to use large drones to conduct research flights in the Arctic Circle.