ArroTech’s GEON E61 Drone Supplies Valuable, High-quality Data at High Speed
The GEON E61 metal-detecting drone does more than signal the presence or absence of materials found in landmines, unexploded ordnance (UXO) and other remnants of war.
The autonomous drone returns data that enables users to determine the size of a piece of metal in the ground and how widely scattered metal is in an area.
Members of the GEON E61 development and prototyping team note that metal confined to a small area will register differently than metal that is spread out over a large acreage.
“That’s how we differentiate between a mine and iron-rich soil,” said team member Kurt Morris. “There is a lot of information you can extract from our system. It’s not just a ‘yes or no’ kind of thing. The data is qualitative.”
In operation, the GEON E61 flies at a speed of 2 meters per second, far more quickly than a person who is equipped with a handheld or cart-mounted metal detector and who operates at risk of triggering an explosion while in the field.
“You might think in scoping out an area very quickly, the quality of your data might suffer,” Morris said. “That’s not the case with our drone. We get better data faster.”
ArroTech co-founder and chief technical officer Tobias Leininger recently added new real-time processing to the GEON E61 system. Now, information is displayed directly on a control tablet while the scanning of an area remains in progress.
Users receive maps that show targets in ways appropriate to the purpose of their mission. They also get a map overlay that can be loaded into Google Maps or other mapping software; a spreadsheet that lists information and positions for every target; and much more.
The GEON E61 system creates better data faster for several reasons. It is much more precise than a person operating with a handheld device, and it maintains that precision at high speeds while keeping its sensor at a constant height above the ground.
The autonomous GEON E61 drone is well-suited to use in farmers’ fields that tend to be uniform and free of obstacles but is also capable of flying over areas best avoided by people such as swamps, thick brush, rocky terrain, water and toxic environments.
Following routes by walking back and forth in empty fields is a dull activity for people and in the case of mine fields, a dangerous one. The GEON E61 covers the same areas at a fixed speed and a specified height.
Flight planning is easy. And the drone, by allowing for the demining of fields and their return to safe production, can make invaluable contributions to both local economies and the world’s food supply.
