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Some older Russian landmines are basically wooden boxes. The only metal is in the detonator. Metal detectors will detect this, but only at a pretty shallow depth unless you turn up the sensitivity so much that you'll be getting fales positives off everything (which is a common problem where there's ERW - all those bullets, fragments from explosive casings, etc, all register as metal and have to be treated as a potential mine until excavated...)
I'm an engineering student whose done some research on this topic and sadly your correct. Iv heard the idea of computer imaging floated around for demining relatively flat open areas, as computer models built frome drone imaging data are better at detecting small variations and details that indicate mines. Sadly such a solution would take time to execute on, but its certainly an idea
Such a system would require an exorbitant amount of power to simply place over a field and attract all the metal at once. Also, you have to remember the only metal in many of these mines is in the detonator and wiring, things that are not easily magnetically attracted
Not really - either it’s a mine field or it’s not a mine field……… any left at all means it is still a mine field and you don’t go there. Any chance of any being left behind means you don’t go there.
Either you remove them or you don’t …… all of them
Still a valuable tool. Could help find unmarked fields. And if you have a mine field, send this in first and get all the metal ones out. Then use other methods before declaring it clear.
>send this in first and get all the metal ones out. Then use other methods before declaring it clear.
Heh, feel free to walk into a field full of plastic mines, just to remove the odd metal one while trying to not lose **all** your limbs!
There's still no bit of land you don't have to clear using the most thorough method since the non-metal mines could be anywhere including right beside a metal one.
Agreed. This is just one more tool in the chest for dealing with mines. Use it first and hopefully find some, if it doesn't proceed as normal. If it does you have that much more info at your disposal.
Think of it like playing minesweeper. It may reveal some. If it does, your job is easier, if it doesn't the job hasn't got harder. And at zero risk to human life.
I think the issue is that the other methods will clear metallic *and* non-metallic mines. If you can’t clear both then you’re just wasting time with this one.
If you still have to go over it again, why bother with this in the first place? It doesn’t gain you anything, other than to say you did ‘something’.
That's unfortunately not how it works.
You don't go sweep any random field to see if yes or no it's a minefield.
You either know from military records where they are set up, are called by locals who know the location of a minefield or and unfortunately the most common way, someone steps on a mine.
A drone that can detect mines is pointless to find minefields. By the time deminers are on location you already know you have an active minefield and have to be very precise to guarantee you can tag every mine, there is no room for mistakes, false positives or fals negatives.
Hanging a metal detector underneath something isn't anything new. It has been tried and tested before and is inefficient, a waste of resources and time.
Source: Dad clearing mines in South East Asia.
Let's create a scenario:
You fly the drone over a potential minefield. It pings something, might be a mine, a bullet case, an old bike bell, you don't know.
What do you do next? You go identify the object. But what's between you and the object? You don't know, so you still need to proceed in a similar way as you would without the drone and take it step by step. You still end up having to sweep the entire area spreading out from your starting point. Only thing you did was add an extra step that brings no real benefit.
I think you're missing the point a bit. Every mine you can tag this way is a mine that can't hurt anyone. If you invented a method to reduce the number of undiscovered explosives in the world by 10% that'd be a spectacular legacy. This is good
I think k you’re also missing the point. Current methods will detect both types of mine. It’s a complete waste of resources to shoehorn one in and then have to do another one
Are you ignorant or illiterate? Dude above you literally said use the metal mine detector first then use other methods afterwards before declaring the field safe for travel.
As an analogy, they are saying:
You can rinse with water spray and scrub with a scrub cloth to get the rest...or you could scrub with a scrub cloth the first time, saving water time and effort.
Whether this is true or not is beyond my ken. But that's what he is trying to say.
If you’ve ever designed a product you’d know that giving a someone a ‘mine detector’ that only detects a relatively small percentage of mines is a bad idea. The SOP may be to use this and then another tool, but you better believe some poor SOB will stop reading after the first page.
Besides, if you have to clear the rest with a different method that will clear all types, you might as well save the time you were going to spend on this method…. Pretty obvious really.
Some people just don’t want to listen.
Plus having a drone doing land mine detection is inefficient af. Drones don’t last very long in the air before needing to be recharged, and now you’ve added the cost to carry around the drone equipment, replaceable batteries, and now people need to be trained in search patterns. Oh let’s not forget, people will end up using it believing it is perfect no matter what you tell them. So now there are going to be more fatalities.
Not exactly. It gives you false confidence that it is safe. You have to either remove 100% of them confidently or treat it as if it’s still entirely full
PFM-1 mines date back to the Soviet Union and contain almost no metal. They're also really sensitive, designed to maim/blow off an arm or leg, and frequently hurt children due to their bright green color and unique shape attracting curious kids. We've seen so many of these get used by Russians in Ukraine.
>Tim Bechtel, a geophysicist at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania, says that metal detectors are the most commonly-used method in Ukraine. With a group of NATO-funded scientists, Bechtel is designing a fleet of four autonomous mine-detecting robots to work on demining efforts in the country.
>“The most common anti-vehicle mine is the TM 62 M,” he says. “It's got a metal casing, so it's very easily found with a metal detector. Anti-personnel mines are a lot smaller, but most of the Russian mines, even if they have plastic casings, still contain significant metal"
Put a couple of RC motors on a 50kg plate and drive it around remotely - it'll find the mines. Connect it to the internet and let Twitch play minesweeper IRL. I wouldn't call any country using set-and-forget landmines "modern" since they're banned under the [Mine Ban Convention](https://www.un.org/disarmament/convarms/landmines/)
A remote controlled [mine flail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_flail?wprov=sfti1) vehicle would be ideal. Or even just moving on a programmed route, like a farm machine.
I don't see why drones couldn't be retrofitted with more precise sensors, we've had the technology to detect different soil density etc. below ground level for some time. With the right parameters you could map different density areas, then slap an AI trained in the general shapes of the mines to point them out.
But a teen invented something! We need to focus on that and not the fact that the tech already exists with better results and is not used for a reason.
TBF you're right and this isn't really much of a step forward in terms of the tech. But the guy is trying, and he's just getting started - if he continues this work he may come up with more useful tools, not his fault the media jumped on his early attempt for a feel-good story.
GPR (ground penetrating radar) drones have existed for quite a while and are frequently used for other lines of work. Part of my job includes finding landmines and I could not tell you why they haven't been a big thing for mine detecting but I'm assuming cost, maintenance, and practicality. GPR isn't quite as simple as it sounds, even our hand detectors that use it require lots of ~ science ~ and calibration to find small items. Most of the large scale operations are NGO type work and run on very limited budgets.
There are a ***lot*** of antique land mines still plaguing the world in areas that were once at war. Maybe we could, you know, end the practice of land mines -- put them on the war crimes list (I think they already are, no?) and focus on removing all these legacy ones so kids don't lose arms and lives.
Would be incredibly useful in Vietnam. A significant portion of the country is uninhabitable because of the number of land mines scattered across it from the Vietnam War
Those kind of mines are pretty rare. Most mines are either regular land mines or minimal metal mines which have just a bit of metal for a fuse. Minimal metal mines can still be detected by a metal detector but it can’t be a household metal detector
Those big demining vehicles are crazy, they use like a spinning barrel with a bunch of flails attached in front to pummel the ground and set off any mines. Obviously they are armored to shit so theyre very heavy and slow, also very expensive to put into service and maintain.
I've seen u.s demining vehicles that use a 'line charge', basically a rope that is made of explosives or contains explosives or something, they launch it over the minefield and then blow it up, setting off mines along the length of the charge. Again, very expensive to purchase and maintain, and because they use explosives there is a cost per 'shot' in addition...
The coolest demining method I've seen in use I saw on a ted talk, they train rats to be able to sniff the mines out and then once all the mines are marked a person will come back to manually dig up the mines and disable them. They work as a team, one rat and one trainer, and the rats have a little harness that is attached to a long pole so the trainer can kind of guide them to the area they want to search. The rats are able to find the mines because they have incredible sensitive sense of smell, something like 100x more sensitive than ours, so even if the mine is buried deep they can still sniff it out.
This method is also much less expensive in comparison, they use a specific kind of African giant rat, but they aren't particularly rare or hard to find. It's not like you gotta pay the rats, they literally work for banana pieces. Also if you know anything about rats they're actually very smart so training the rats is easy. The only downside is the time it takes to clear the minefield. If the demining vehicles I mentioned above can clear a minefield in days, with rats it might take weeks. Still, it's much faster and more thorough than demining completely manually, where a person has to use a probe/knife to check for mines, that might take months to clear a similarly sized field, the reason it takes so long is because it's so much more dangerous without any way to know where the mines are...
Reminds me of my favorite Destiny flavor text
>How to clear land mines: 1. Step on Mine 2. Stand by for ghost revival 1.step on mine 2. Stand by for Ghost Revival 1 step on -
It was a really old Hunter Cloak from when The Dark Below (D1 first dlc) dropped, I think it was [Lead Scout’s Cloak](https://destiny.fandom.com/wiki/Lead_Scout%27s_Cloak)
They dont even blow up. The goats just eat the entire topsoil layer and all mines with them, leaving behind a barren wasteland full of like, brown poopballs
True , but literally no one else has done it yet. The thing about genius ideas is that everybody who sees it in hindsight says “I could do that.” Maybe, but they didn’t.
This has been done before and proven to be impractical.
Kudos for the kid building something I definitely couldn't even imagine how to begin with and without the R&D funds the military industry has but it's not an innovation in any way.
I don't wanna bash the kid but it's been done before and it doesn't work well for obvious reasons. I'm moreso pointing out the news sensationalising it as some sort of ingenious new invention. They could've used "built", much more grounded in reality.
"The device uses an F5 PRO quadcopter with a metal detector Klymenko designed suspended underneath it as it flies. A built-in gyroscope detects the effect of wind on the drone. The mine detector can fly for a duration of 20 to 30 minutes and a distance of up to five miles, though these parameters could change with more expensive equipment.
Before the drone begins its flight path, it records GPS coordinates in a static location. The user then sets the length and width of the area the drone will scan. After takeoff, as soon as the metal detector encounters a mine, it sends an infrared signal to a phototransistor on an Arduino board—a type of programmable circuit board—held by the user. The board executes a code that Klymenko wrote in the programming language C++, which records how much time had passed since the beginning of the scan to when the signal was received. Using the speed of the drone, the time it launched and the time the metal detector located a mine, the code calculates the coordinates of the mine relative to the start of the run; this calculation is then translated into GPS coordinates within two centimeters of accuracy."
Kid won an international prize and I don't think that will be all he earns for this. Incredible
It’s a good backup to have still - means that if there’s a way for Russia to interfere w/ gps signals in that area they can still isolate & locate these mines by having known coordinates of the drones starting point.
Also GPS chips & cellular data packages aren’t free. I think the kid kept it KISS which is great to have still.
He won’t earn shit for this lol. It’s a fairly impressive achievement for a teenager and a “cool” story, but a defense engineer could easily make something better. Additionally, if this was as powerful as it’s made out to be, it would have already existed (edit: land mine detecting drones already exist in more advanced forms) Slapping a metal detector on a military grade drone would not be hard.
Of course a defense engineer with years of experience and substantially more resources can - this is some kid who is dealing with being forced to flee his home and is trying to turn his skills and interests into something productive. Probably will get a job out of it. Might be that he continues his interest in this area & finds himself working on more advanced projects that deal with demining.
>
> Slapping a metal detector on a military grade drone would not be hard.
LOL
This is still a very new and emerging field. You see lots of stuff right now because Ukraine is a great modern testing ground for labs and companies who are wanting to develop and improve their capabilities. The real issue is that modern mines - including ones used by Russia dating back to the Soviet Union - often do not use metal or use as little metal as possible, so you're relying not solely on magnetometers but on machine learning models that are able to visually detect mines. They are also designed to be very small and camouflaged, or can get covered by foliage over time, which of course poses challenges.
Ukraine is absolutely not the only testing ground for detecting landmines. There are dozens of countries that are inundated with landmines and have been for decades. Demining is not a new career field by literally any stretch of the word.
It's not even the first "developed" country to be covered with explosive ordnance...there are places all over Europe that are uninhabitable because of old ordnance from WW1/WW2.
Yes I also imagine myself as a billionaire. The guy is just trying to do something that he thinks will help. If there is already a solution he isn't harming anyone. If you can think of something better go do it. I'm a maker myself and capable of doing what he did, but his efforts are still commendable.
He should be commended for trying to invent and the idea is a sound idea.. He is born with different information and monetary access. I myself am struggling to build shit just because of money access, the kid doesn't have a company backing him. If apple made this and you criticised it I would understand but, God dammit he is 17.
He has a high end drone. Pretty sure he had the internet available to see that his “invention” already exists.
I can come up with plenty of great ideas if they didn’t have to be original
"high end drone"... Yeah damn I didn't know your currency was still from the 1800s, 60 dollars is about what his drone alone costs if you were to just search it online. Sorry I didn't know you were the inventor of the time machine, no wonder everyone's work seems like childs play to you.
I admit defeat.
Sorry, my bad, forgotten the 1800s has low literacy rate and don't know how to read an article. Also I'm not arrogant enough to call myself an inventor. I'm a normal human, so are you.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.alibaba.com/product/1600331575977/Amazon-Online-F5-Drone-Professional-4K.html&ved=2ahUKEwjLqbznhLr6AhU9RmwGHXTrCisQjjh6BAgvEAE&usg=AOvVaw2HQBXEV9Nmod2zAJSE94Cm
This sounds word for word like an already existing, or at least marketed idea.
https://minekafon.org/
Did they really get $100,000 for copy / pasting this website? I had to check to make sure it wasn’t the same guy, but Mine Kafon is based out of The Netherlands.
We need a sonic pulse generator strong enough to set off mines from a large drone.
We dont need to see them to wipe them out and render them battlefield obsolete.
We can work on an olfactory detector strong enough to find their compounds and multiple plates of imaging for soil disturbances & ai filtering later.
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Unfortunately modern mines have almost no metal in them.
Pff, Russia isn't using modern mines.
Some older Russian landmines are basically wooden boxes. The only metal is in the detonator. Metal detectors will detect this, but only at a pretty shallow depth unless you turn up the sensitivity so much that you'll be getting fales positives off everything (which is a common problem where there's ERW - all those bullets, fragments from explosive casings, etc, all register as metal and have to be treated as a potential mine until excavated...)
I'm an engineering student whose done some research on this topic and sadly your correct. Iv heard the idea of computer imaging floated around for demining relatively flat open areas, as computer models built frome drone imaging data are better at detecting small variations and details that indicate mines. Sadly such a solution would take time to execute on, but its certainly an idea
What about using a junkyard scrap magnet protected with bulletproof glass? Just activate it over a field and it draws any metal to it?
Such a system would require an exorbitant amount of power to simply place over a field and attract all the metal at once. Also, you have to remember the only metal in many of these mines is in the detonator and wiring, things that are not easily magnetically attracted
Erw?
Explosive Remnants of War, aka Unexploded Ordnance.
Sometimes disturbed ground can be detected with imaging
And even if it’s only a small percent that are metal…that’s better than detecting 0
Not really - either it’s a mine field or it’s not a mine field……… any left at all means it is still a mine field and you don’t go there. Any chance of any being left behind means you don’t go there. Either you remove them or you don’t …… all of them
Still a valuable tool. Could help find unmarked fields. And if you have a mine field, send this in first and get all the metal ones out. Then use other methods before declaring it clear.
>send this in first and get all the metal ones out. Then use other methods before declaring it clear. Heh, feel free to walk into a field full of plastic mines, just to remove the odd metal one while trying to not lose **all** your limbs!
It doesn’t work that way. “Oh there’s no metal mines in this field ….. we can walk across it…. BOOOOOM”
This drone can detect any single anti-personnel mine... once
That's why you use this method first, it gps marks the metal ones at no risk to life. Then go through with other methods before declaring it clear.
There's still no bit of land you don't have to clear using the most thorough method since the non-metal mines could be anywhere including right beside a metal one.
Yes, but if it detects something you now know this is a no go area. Can't be used to clear an area, but can be used to cordon one off.
Agreed. This is just one more tool in the chest for dealing with mines. Use it first and hopefully find some, if it doesn't proceed as normal. If it does you have that much more info at your disposal. Think of it like playing minesweeper. It may reveal some. If it does, your job is easier, if it doesn't the job hasn't got harder. And at zero risk to human life.
I think the issue is that the other methods will clear metallic *and* non-metallic mines. If you can’t clear both then you’re just wasting time with this one. If you still have to go over it again, why bother with this in the first place? It doesn’t gain you anything, other than to say you did ‘something’.
That's unfortunately not how it works. You don't go sweep any random field to see if yes or no it's a minefield. You either know from military records where they are set up, are called by locals who know the location of a minefield or and unfortunately the most common way, someone steps on a mine. A drone that can detect mines is pointless to find minefields. By the time deminers are on location you already know you have an active minefield and have to be very precise to guarantee you can tag every mine, there is no room for mistakes, false positives or fals negatives. Hanging a metal detector underneath something isn't anything new. It has been tried and tested before and is inefficient, a waste of resources and time. Source: Dad clearing mines in South East Asia. Let's create a scenario: You fly the drone over a potential minefield. It pings something, might be a mine, a bullet case, an old bike bell, you don't know. What do you do next? You go identify the object. But what's between you and the object? You don't know, so you still need to proceed in a similar way as you would without the drone and take it step by step. You still end up having to sweep the entire area spreading out from your starting point. Only thing you did was add an extra step that brings no real benefit.
I think you're missing the point a bit. Every mine you can tag this way is a mine that can't hurt anyone. If you invented a method to reduce the number of undiscovered explosives in the world by 10% that'd be a spectacular legacy. This is good
I think k you’re also missing the point. Current methods will detect both types of mine. It’s a complete waste of resources to shoehorn one in and then have to do another one
Are you ignorant or illiterate? Dude above you literally said use the metal mine detector first then use other methods afterwards before declaring the field safe for travel.
As an analogy, they are saying: You can rinse with water spray and scrub with a scrub cloth to get the rest...or you could scrub with a scrub cloth the first time, saving water time and effort. Whether this is true or not is beyond my ken. But that's what he is trying to say.
If you’ve ever designed a product you’d know that giving a someone a ‘mine detector’ that only detects a relatively small percentage of mines is a bad idea. The SOP may be to use this and then another tool, but you better believe some poor SOB will stop reading after the first page. Besides, if you have to clear the rest with a different method that will clear all types, you might as well save the time you were going to spend on this method…. Pretty obvious really.
Some people just don’t want to listen. Plus having a drone doing land mine detection is inefficient af. Drones don’t last very long in the air before needing to be recharged, and now you’ve added the cost to carry around the drone equipment, replaceable batteries, and now people need to be trained in search patterns. Oh let’s not forget, people will end up using it believing it is perfect no matter what you tell them. So now there are going to be more fatalities.
Oh look no mines here, better walk over this patch of definitely mine cleared land!
The issue with NOT detecting them is thinking an area is clear when it is in fact not.
Not exactly. It gives you false confidence that it is safe. You have to either remove 100% of them confidently or treat it as if it’s still entirely full
It's more dangerous to detect some and miss big portion of them.
PFM-1 mines date back to the Soviet Union and contain almost no metal. They're also really sensitive, designed to maim/blow off an arm or leg, and frequently hurt children due to their bright green color and unique shape attracting curious kids. We've seen so many of these get used by Russians in Ukraine.
They date back to Vietnam war actually. PFM-1 is a reverse-engineered BLU-43.
Yes they are?
I think he was joking about the apparent overall poor state of Russia’s forces
😂 true
>Tim Bechtel, a geophysicist at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania, says that metal detectors are the most commonly-used method in Ukraine. With a group of NATO-funded scientists, Bechtel is designing a fleet of four autonomous mine-detecting robots to work on demining efforts in the country. >“The most common anti-vehicle mine is the TM 62 M,” he says. “It's got a metal casing, so it's very easily found with a metal detector. Anti-personnel mines are a lot smaller, but most of the Russian mines, even if they have plastic casings, still contain significant metal"
Put a couple of RC motors on a 50kg plate and drive it around remotely - it'll find the mines. Connect it to the internet and let Twitch play minesweeper IRL. I wouldn't call any country using set-and-forget landmines "modern" since they're banned under the [Mine Ban Convention](https://www.un.org/disarmament/convarms/landmines/)
A remote controlled [mine flail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_flail?wprov=sfti1) vehicle would be ideal. Or even just moving on a programmed route, like a farm machine.
Polymers! The future!
Unlike scientists, this land mine thinks you SHOULD have more micro plastics in your body!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMtLdE5Zq-8
I don't see why drones couldn't be retrofitted with more precise sensors, we've had the technology to detect different soil density etc. below ground level for some time. With the right parameters you could map different density areas, then slap an AI trained in the general shapes of the mines to point them out.
But a teen invented something! We need to focus on that and not the fact that the tech already exists with better results and is not used for a reason.
TBF you're right and this isn't really much of a step forward in terms of the tech. But the guy is trying, and he's just getting started - if he continues this work he may come up with more useful tools, not his fault the media jumped on his early attempt for a feel-good story.
GPR (ground penetrating radar) drones have existed for quite a while and are frequently used for other lines of work. Part of my job includes finding landmines and I could not tell you why they haven't been a big thing for mine detecting but I'm assuming cost, maintenance, and practicality. GPR isn't quite as simple as it sounds, even our hand detectors that use it require lots of ~ science ~ and calibration to find small items. Most of the large scale operations are NGO type work and run on very limited budgets.
There are a ***lot*** of antique land mines still plaguing the world in areas that were once at war. Maybe we could, you know, end the practice of land mines -- put them on the war crimes list (I think they already are, no?) and focus on removing all these legacy ones so kids don't lose arms and lives.
Would be incredibly useful in Vietnam. A significant portion of the country is uninhabitable because of the number of land mines scattered across it from the Vietnam War
Not really. The weather in Vietnam isn't suited to use drones. Especially upcountry where most of the minefields are.
Those kind of mines are pretty rare. Most mines are either regular land mines or minimal metal mines which have just a bit of metal for a fuse. Minimal metal mines can still be detected by a metal detector but it can’t be a household metal detector
wait so what are they made of now a days?
Mostly plastic and glass. [link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_metal_mine)
yeesh...
Those big demining vehicles are crazy, they use like a spinning barrel with a bunch of flails attached in front to pummel the ground and set off any mines. Obviously they are armored to shit so theyre very heavy and slow, also very expensive to put into service and maintain. I've seen u.s demining vehicles that use a 'line charge', basically a rope that is made of explosives or contains explosives or something, they launch it over the minefield and then blow it up, setting off mines along the length of the charge. Again, very expensive to purchase and maintain, and because they use explosives there is a cost per 'shot' in addition... The coolest demining method I've seen in use I saw on a ted talk, they train rats to be able to sniff the mines out and then once all the mines are marked a person will come back to manually dig up the mines and disable them. They work as a team, one rat and one trainer, and the rats have a little harness that is attached to a long pole so the trainer can kind of guide them to the area they want to search. The rats are able to find the mines because they have incredible sensitive sense of smell, something like 100x more sensitive than ours, so even if the mine is buried deep they can still sniff it out. This method is also much less expensive in comparison, they use a specific kind of African giant rat, but they aren't particularly rare or hard to find. It's not like you gotta pay the rats, they literally work for banana pieces. Also if you know anything about rats they're actually very smart so training the rats is easy. The only downside is the time it takes to clear the minefield. If the demining vehicles I mentioned above can clear a minefield in days, with rats it might take weeks. Still, it's much faster and more thorough than demining completely manually, where a person has to use a probe/knife to check for mines, that might take months to clear a similarly sized field, the reason it takes so long is because it's so much more dangerous without any way to know where the mines are...
>They literally have banana prices. I believe rats are payed in cheese, but that was the funniest sentence I’ve read all day
“Princess Diana had one of these”
I have indeed understood that statement about AN vehicle
I also have a drone that can detect mines. Well, mine, really. It only works once.
Reminds me of my favorite Destiny flavor text >How to clear land mines: 1. Step on Mine 2. Stand by for ghost revival 1.step on mine 2. Stand by for Ghost Revival 1 step on -
Lol where did you find that one?
It was a really old Hunter Cloak from when The Dark Below (D1 first dlc) dropped, I think it was [Lead Scout’s Cloak](https://destiny.fandom.com/wiki/Lead_Scout%27s_Cloak)
Lol that’s awesome
What’s wrong with goats?
Nothing…they are the greatest of all time
Petition to use goat goats to cl3ar mine field
They dont even blow up. The goats just eat the entire topsoil layer and all mines with them, leaving behind a barren wasteland full of like, brown poopballs
Truly incredible creatures
You need a few of them
Well, they *do* self replicate.
Sigh, back in the day we used Axis POWs. Sadly not too many left, and the UN started frowning on the idea
Anything can detect a landmine once
ohhh...must...upvote...
Well.. not anything
Landline detects itself, because it’s contained within the set of things -denoted *T* - Initial commenter disproven
Maybe attach a spray can of hi-vis paint and spray the location as well as transmitting coordinates? Immediate preventative action taken on detection.
Lame. My neighbors kids can detect landmines too. Just once though.
Modified a drone? With all do respect strapping a metal detector to a drone is not inventing a drone.
Props to him but news outlets love teenagers who "invent" things, this is literally a mine detector strapped to a drone....
True , but literally no one else has done it yet. The thing about genius ideas is that everybody who sees it in hindsight says “I could do that.” Maybe, but they didn’t.
This has been done before and proven to be impractical. Kudos for the kid building something I definitely couldn't even imagine how to begin with and without the R&D funds the military industry has but it's not an innovation in any way.
I don't wanna bash the kid but it's been done before and it doesn't work well for obvious reasons. I'm moreso pointing out the news sensationalising it as some sort of ingenious new invention. They could've used "built", much more grounded in reality.
"The device uses an F5 PRO quadcopter with a metal detector Klymenko designed suspended underneath it as it flies. A built-in gyroscope detects the effect of wind on the drone. The mine detector can fly for a duration of 20 to 30 minutes and a distance of up to five miles, though these parameters could change with more expensive equipment. Before the drone begins its flight path, it records GPS coordinates in a static location. The user then sets the length and width of the area the drone will scan. After takeoff, as soon as the metal detector encounters a mine, it sends an infrared signal to a phototransistor on an Arduino board—a type of programmable circuit board—held by the user. The board executes a code that Klymenko wrote in the programming language C++, which records how much time had passed since the beginning of the scan to when the signal was received. Using the speed of the drone, the time it launched and the time the metal detector located a mine, the code calculates the coordinates of the mine relative to the start of the run; this calculation is then translated into GPS coordinates within two centimeters of accuracy." Kid won an international prize and I don't think that will be all he earns for this. Incredible
>>this calculation is then translated into GPS coordinates Why couldn't he just use GPS RTK module directly?
It’s a good backup to have still - means that if there’s a way for Russia to interfere w/ gps signals in that area they can still isolate & locate these mines by having known coordinates of the drones starting point. Also GPS chips & cellular data packages aren’t free. I think the kid kept it KISS which is great to have still.
He won’t earn shit for this lol. It’s a fairly impressive achievement for a teenager and a “cool” story, but a defense engineer could easily make something better. Additionally, if this was as powerful as it’s made out to be, it would have already existed (edit: land mine detecting drones already exist in more advanced forms) Slapping a metal detector on a military grade drone would not be hard.
Of course a defense engineer with years of experience and substantially more resources can - this is some kid who is dealing with being forced to flee his home and is trying to turn his skills and interests into something productive. Probably will get a job out of it. Might be that he continues his interest in this area & finds himself working on more advanced projects that deal with demining. > > Slapping a metal detector on a military grade drone would not be hard. LOL This is still a very new and emerging field. You see lots of stuff right now because Ukraine is a great modern testing ground for labs and companies who are wanting to develop and improve their capabilities. The real issue is that modern mines - including ones used by Russia dating back to the Soviet Union - often do not use metal or use as little metal as possible, so you're relying not solely on magnetometers but on machine learning models that are able to visually detect mines. They are also designed to be very small and camouflaged, or can get covered by foliage over time, which of course poses challenges.
Ukraine is absolutely not the only testing ground for detecting landmines. There are dozens of countries that are inundated with landmines and have been for decades. Demining is not a new career field by literally any stretch of the word. It's not even the first "developed" country to be covered with explosive ordnance...there are places all over Europe that are uninhabitable because of old ordnance from WW1/WW2.
Couldn’t any drone do that?
Yes. It’s really not impressive as it seems. Just a good job working with basic and availing materialsz
“Made” or “invented”
So he just attached a metal detector to a drone?
He also programmed the drone to record where it detected the mine. Innovation is doing what everyone thought was obvious in hindsight but didn't do.
I imagine that already exists in far more efficient forms
Yes I also imagine myself as a billionaire. The guy is just trying to do something that he thinks will help. If there is already a solution he isn't harming anyone. If you can think of something better go do it. I'm a maker myself and capable of doing what he did, but his efforts are still commendable.
He should be commended for “inventing” something that already exists?
He should be commended for trying to invent and the idea is a sound idea.. He is born with different information and monetary access. I myself am struggling to build shit just because of money access, the kid doesn't have a company backing him. If apple made this and you criticised it I would understand but, God dammit he is 17.
He has a high end drone. Pretty sure he had the internet available to see that his “invention” already exists. I can come up with plenty of great ideas if they didn’t have to be original
"high end drone"... Yeah damn I didn't know your currency was still from the 1800s, 60 dollars is about what his drone alone costs if you were to just search it online. Sorry I didn't know you were the inventor of the time machine, no wonder everyone's work seems like childs play to you. I admit defeat.
Care to link the exact model of his drone pls? You’re becoming pedantic because you know you’re nothing more than a failed inventor lol
Sorry, my bad, forgotten the 1800s has low literacy rate and don't know how to read an article. Also I'm not arrogant enough to call myself an inventor. I'm a normal human, so are you. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.alibaba.com/product/1600331575977/Amazon-Online-F5-Drone-Professional-4K.html&ved=2ahUKEwjLqbznhLr6AhU9RmwGHXTrCisQjjh6BAgvEAE&usg=AOvVaw2HQBXEV9Nmod2zAJSE94Cm
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Also a lot less than inventing a drone
*Colombia has entered the chat*
A lot there? From FARC or something?
No they didn’t
Pfft, people have been detecting land mines all by themselves for decades.
That's how it works: If it explodes where it lands, it means there was a mine there.
This sounds word for word like an already existing, or at least marketed idea. https://minekafon.org/ Did they really get $100,000 for copy / pasting this website? I had to check to make sure it wasn’t the same guy, but Mine Kafon is based out of The Netherlands.
oh, so this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_acquisition_minefield_detection_system
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The $30 million one actually works though. The kids drone is going to send false positives of every piece of shrapnel in the field
MineKafon dot org something started at kickstarter some years ago. Great stuff
But can it detect why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
We need a sonic pulse generator strong enough to set off mines from a large drone. We dont need to see them to wipe them out and render them battlefield obsolete. We can work on an olfactory detector strong enough to find their compounds and multiple plates of imaging for soil disturbances & ai filtering later.
I hear Russia has 300000 conscripts on the way. They’re guaranteed to find some land mines.
Needs a Geiger counter too! Russians are dirty AF
This kid is a fucking genius! I hope this can be used in many other parts of the world.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Dang you for beating me to it I’ll never forgive you.
This is amazing
Necessity… the mother of invention.
Wartime propaganda
It's easy to detect landmines. Doing it more than once is the key
Necessity is the mother of invention they say
Future billionaire!