ArroTech enhances mine-detection system while working to develop key relationships

Tobias Leininger, ArroTech’s co-founder and chief technical officer, was excited. Operators of the company’s GEON E61 metal-detecting drone had successfully scanned an acre of Ukrainian farmland for the presence of suspected landmines or other unexploded remnants of war. 

The exercise, completed in September 2024, was one in a series of missions and exercises that have demonstrated the capabilities of the GEON E61, which has been developed to make mine detection safer, faster and more reliable. It represents a dramatic advance over traditional handheld and cart-mounted detection devices. 

“The quality of the data was excellent,” Leininger enthused about the scan, which pinpointed the locations of several items. The GEON E61 creates data sets including an aerial photo, map overlay and target coordinates displayed in a spreadsheet. 

The scan was completed in slightly less than two hours, and Leininger said the GEON E61 can achieve even greater speeds. 

It took place in the Tschernihiw region east of Kyiv at a site that was once a battlefield, Leininger said. Plans were made to scan additional areas of the farmer’s acreage and a second, larger field and to approach more hotly contested areas in the war against Ukraine initiated by Russia. 

Leininger said the scan and others like it serve ArroTech as learning experiences. 

“The team is engaged in mastering operational details, and we are continuously working on technical upgrades,” he noted. He added that confidence-inspiring successes like the September scan can be expected to facilitate efforts to raise funds to support demining efforts. 

On various fronts, ArroTech has made significant, accelerating progress in recent months. 

In June 2024, Leininger, accompanied by two consultants, trained Ukrainian men in their 20s to become GEON E61 operators and was impressed by their level of interest in demining operations. 

ArroTech continues to build a relationship with Acuity International, a global company that expedites the missions of governments and enterprise organizations and whose activities include humanitarian assistance. 

Additionally, ArroTech has: 

• Undertaken pursuit of State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SESU) certification for the GEON E61 system. The relationship with SESU is a critical one, Leininger explains, because it has the authority to manage demining operations in Ukraine. 

• Conducted tests to determine the height from which the GEON E61 can detect anti-tank mines. That distance has been established at 1.65 meters, meaning the system will be able to “see” mines while flying over heavy vegetation. 

• Updated the GEON E61 with hardware and software updates enabling it to perform in areas with strong magnetic interference. 

All of these steps represent important progress in an effort to demine what has become the most mined nation in the world and to restore its vast farmlands to productive use.