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Metal-Detecting Drone Could Autonomously Find Land Mines - IEEE Spectrum

My first day out of Melbourne Australia for a long time was spent exploring Nuggetty Hills near Maldon in Victoria. Felt good to get some fresh country air. Rocky hilly terrain meant I used a drone to get a better view. The drone has proven itself a very useful tool, for prospecting and more. All the best.

Have you ever wondered what the cutting edge mining drones are doing these days? Here is one company that gives an idea at the large scale level. They call it Hovermap. https://www.emesent.io/industries/mining/?utm_campaign=Mining Campaign Dec'20&utm_source=EDM-AM-7May2021&utm_medium=EDM-AM-7May2021&utm_term=EDM-AM-7May2021&utm_content=EDM-AM-7May2021 What if you don't have any lidar? Make your own. Does anyone know anything about placer mapping?

https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2021016649A1/en?assignee=minelab&scholar&oq=minelab&sort=new This is the most out of this world Minelab detector patent I've ever read. There is so much here, some very sci-fi like, I don't even know where to start. My takeaway is they seem to be positioning themselves for a drone based detector eventually (main details in this patent could be easily transferred to a drone based platform - IMU, GPS, magnetometer, heads up display, FPV, remote control, robotic/vehicle mount, etc) . That is 100% a guess. But in the meantime, there is some interesting, novel items in the pipeline that we might actually see on a machine in closer future? No clue if this is a coin machine or gold machine or if it's something they are actually working on right now or just trying to get control patents on such things for the future which may or may not arrive. One thing is for certain, Minelab is BUSY in the engineering department. A few of the highlights: Heads up display over glasses/head mounted display (aka augmented reality). Settings, target visualization, shading of detected/not detected areas (I asked for this specifically 5 or 6 years ago here, awesome to see it in a patent now). Plus a camera showing the coil (why would you need that if not operating remotely as from a drone?) The detector has a camera, IMU (accelerometer) and magnetometer to determine position with accuracy. The IMU tracks the position of the coil in real time in relation to both the ground and the target, and combined with the camera video feed will provide a "visual" of the target in the ground through the glasses/head display, as in form of a heat map which increases accuracy with each pass of a coil over the target. A GPS tracks the machine position to properly map the IMU/coil visual target data on the ground and let's a user see the mapping as they detect. This data is recorded for future historical use and can be shared. Centimeter accuracy with the visual target heat mapping. Potential operators/users include entities other than humans such as "robots" and "an AI (artificial intelligence) using a metal detector" and this line: "The metal detector may be handheld, mounted on a robotic arm of a vehicle or a robot." Wireless connectivity to computers and phones, transfer of files containing settings configurations from instructors or expert users Remote control of the metal detector through apps on laptops or phones Ability to upload maps, including detecting data, historic human activity, buildings, or other items that seem to indicate custom mapping capability Internet connectivity, potential control through the internet (again, why if not for a drone type device?) "Teamspeak" to other detecting members in the area wirelessly Visual/spatial discrimination Accurate depth measurement Synthesized audio mode, eliminating noise completely and allowing the detector to "recreate" a synthetic audio stream based on data from prior swings Delayed audio processing (enhanced audio) mode or real time audio mode, ability to seperate multiple close targets, reason for this I venture a guess why below ---> This patent actually seems to be describing a completely new method of RX in a detector. Which is actually similar in some ways to the wacky idea I had years ago of reducing EMI/ground noise by emulating a radio telescope array. But in this case they appear to be describing a fairly ingenuous method of doing something similar with only one coil by monitoring RX of the same target at different points in the swing (with the IMU tracking these points) and combining all those RX signals. In this way (and this is my guess, the patent doesn't explain this), you can form a sort of comparator, gradiometer, or interferometer to seperate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. If that's what they are doing, then I find it to be brilliant. If not, then I just gave them one hell of an idea to patent for the future. That probably sounds like jibberish to non-engineers. But I want people to understand the brilliance in simple terms. Consider this: EMI is random. At any given point in your swing you'll get noise here, but not there. So if you compare two points in the same swing, you will hear noise one point but not the other point because the "zap" already ended. But you might hear a good target at both points in the swing since it's not random like EMI, it's always there in the ground. So, you can effectively eliminate EMI by comparing what signal is not there at two very close points in the swing, and keep the target since it's always there. Similarly, with ground, the ground changes as the alluvium changes since soil is inhomogeneous. But a target is still the target. So, a similar method can be applied to the ground. In theory, you could use ideas like this to essentially get rid of the Difficult type timings and keep your gains boosted high, and deal with EMI/ground in this way instead which does not require reducing sensitivity. A totally new, novel approach to RX in a metal detector. The audio processing is very slightly delayed because they are using that time to compare measurements at a few different coil positions before letting the audio processor signal that there is a target present. That's my guess. If that isn't what they are doing, then someone else should patent that and thank me for it later when Minelab buys it. Either way, they have something totally new in the RX department here. And the future of detecting looks bright and interesting to me still.

This is a really great paper describing how you can use the latest technology (AI) and algorithms to locate meteorites. Now just imagine what else you can find if you have the time and knowledge. There are a few here on this forum who will be enlightened by this article but certainly not surprised. It is just a matter of time that we process massive amounts of data quickly. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.13852.pdf

I'm looking into getting a quadcopter for photogrammetry, but have no experience with them at all. Are there specific features that are better than others? What kind of camera resolution is best, and are shutter speeds and drone stability usually good enough to capture good quality, usable photographs? I'm at the beginning of my research, so any tips and recommendations would be greatly appreciated. I saw some information about drones in this article: https://thedigitalcamera.net/best-drones-with-camera/, please tell me which is the best.

Recently my wife and daughter gave me a drone for my birthday. Being a bit of a technical dinosaur, I am still getting the hang of it. These things seem to be rapidly advancing, and it occurred to me that it may provide a way of seeing what is over the next hill without all the footwork. Seeing how America seems to be leading the way with this technology, this seemed to be the ideal place to pose this Question. Any ideas?

Is there anyone on here that use a Drone to survey the area you plan on nugget hunting are coin hunting ? I was thinking about getting one to look over land that has a lot of trees that could have a old home site you can't see from the road. I'll let you know up front I don't go where I don't belong. If I do find something of interest then I'll spend the time looking for the owner. Drones are like detectors and that is just how much money you want to spend. Chuck