Metal detecting drones look for mines flying over Ukrainian farms

A humanitarian demining fund demined farm fields in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region a few kilometres from the Russian border on Sunday (October 1) as farmers all over the country started sowing winter wheat. The charitable fund ’Demining of Ukraine’ used a large agricultural drone carrying a metal detector to detect mines in fields owned by ’Agroinvest’ near Derhachi. Ievhen Poliachenko, a geophysicist at Ukraine’s Academy of Sciences and a demining volunteer, said that their metal detector could detect iron-containing objects even up to half a metre underground, and that a drone detected mines faster than sappers with the usual detecting equipment. He added that it was a first for his fund that sappers immediately retrieved the mines after they were detected, considerably shortening the time span of the demining process. The head of the sappers unit, Jan Artiukhov, explained that the fund’s goal is to develop a fast and reliable demining “algorithm“ with drones and sappers. He added they had partially tested it when demining fields in the southern Mykolaiv region earlier this year. The Sun newspaper brings you the latest breaking news videos and explainers from the UK and around the world Become a Sun Subscriber and hit the bell to be the first to know Read The Sun: Like The Sun on Facebook: Follow The Sun on Twitter: Subscribe to The Sun on Snapchat: