Detecting and Clearing Explosive Devices (ladmines/UXO/IDE) Using Small-Scale Customised Drone - Part II

Abstract

In this study, a small-scale customised drone – the so-called Maggy – was developed to simplify and automate the procedures of cleaning explosive devices. Readers may recall that we published the first part of the paper in the February issue. We present here the concluding part. Maggy was instrumented with innovative intelligent automated techniques and magnetometer sensor technologies. Maggy’s performance was assessed in field tests conducted in Latvia and the United Kingdom. The outcomes, obtained in the open-air minefields and the benchmark assessments, verify the viability of the technologies, methods, and approaches integrated into Maggy for the efficient and economical detection of legacy landmines and IDE/UXO. This research provides the related research community with fundamental design and implementation parameters (e.g. flight speed, flight altitude) in building and using magnetometer-integrated Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). The improved versions of the developed easy-to-use compact technology are aimed to be deployed by humanitarian demining teams to expedite their clearing operations safely and efficiently.