ArroTech Perfects Product While Forging Relationships
The Mine Auction Symposium held in 2017 in Switzerland proved to be a pivotal event in the life of ArroTech co-founder and chief technical officer Tobias Leininger and in the development of the GEON E61 drone/metal-detecting system.
In Switzerland, Leininger met Tony O’Shaughnessey, who has been has been involved in UXO digital geophysical mapping and removal for 40 years. He became convinced that a fully autonomous drone — one equipped with a detector capable of producing the same results as the industry standard EM61-MK2 — could greatly advance efforts to map the locations of landmines and UXO for later detonation or removal.
Indeed, Leininger had been working on such a tool in Germany continuously since 2016 and has been a key figure in the development of drone and multi-rotor technology since 2005.
The first-generation of the autonomous GEON E61 system was completed in 2019. It featured terrain-following capabilities and was capable of gathering and transmitting data in real time for logging in an industry-standard data format in the system’s ground control station.
Only later would Leininger meet American venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur Steve Millaway. Together, the two men would establish ArroTech. In the years since, two additional generations of the metal-detecting drone have been completed, in 2021 and 2024.
Today’s GEON E61 is ready for the marketplace and to make impacts on a global stage. It is capable of real-time processing of data in multiple formats and has been upgraded to eliminate any reliance on magnetic sensors. It stands alone in providing a real-time view of detected items on its control tablet.
Its scanning speed has been increased to 3 meters per second, and its internal components are better protected from the weather. The system is capable of scanning an acre in about two hours while producing the same data quality as manual pushcart methods.
Working with O’Shaughnessey, Leininger has analyzed his system’s cost and productivity versus other mine-detection methods and found that it is clearly superior.
For years, Leininger has been involved simultaneously in product development and relationship building. He has assembled a team in Ukraine that includes Anatoliy Onyschuk and Serghei Danilov, whom he met through O’Shaughnessey.
They have supplied Leininger with valuable contacts, provided demonstration sites and will figure in GEON E61 sales and service-delivery work. Karol Filipczuk has been a key ally in forging relationships inside Ukraine and has facilitated and participated in trips to Ukraine made by Leininger.
Those trips have involved sleepless nights spent in bunkers. Leininger has been near enough to combat to witness air defenses shoot down incoming rockets and drones.
A businessman and humanitarian, he is joined as members of his Ukrainian team by men of a like mindset. All have become familiar with the ravages and weariness of war.
Their work in Ukraine, however, is just beginning.
