64 engine, which recharges a NMC battery from CATL. Once the vegetation has been cut, another UGV model, the Mjølner-1, will then run in lawnmower-type patterns familiar to UAV survey operators, hammering the ground with flails and hammers to trigger or destroy any undetected mines. This 600 kg UGV measures 2900 x 1700 x 900 mm, and runs on its own 30 bhp hybrid-electric powertrain. Its frontal attachment is a milling system, which successfully triggers anti-personnel mines and similar small explosives, which can escape initial detection. Mjølner-1 can withstand anti-personnel landmine detonations from models such as the PNM-2, PNM-4 and PFM-1, or from a larger device such as an unexploded artillery shell or an anti-tank mine of type TM-62, before suffering significant damage. Dropla also produces a UGV called the UNI (meaning universal), which is identical to Mjølner-1, except that it comes without the frontal milling attachment. It can be fitted with either that or a mowing payload for users who prefer to work with a single system for both parts of the UGV-based phase. One may contrast the price of these UGVs against typical de-mining machines; the latter can cost $1.54 m to $2.26 m, consume 300 litres of fuel per day, require an overhaul every 100 hours and clear just one hectare per day. “Each of those costs $8253 per month in fuel and oil, and if one hits an anti-tank mine with 7.5 kg of explosives it stops, because the roller attachment at its front gets either damaged or bent, and needs replacing. Imagine the difficulties of withdrawing and repairing that system, and redeploying it only for it to hit another anti-tank mine after 30 minutes, and you understand the need for something with a far better operational efficiency per euro,” says Shvaydak. “But, if our UGVs get blown up, fine. I spoke with a Ukrainian officer recently who had used a $412,900 specialised machine for vegetation removal. It got thrown up into the air in pieces after just four days of work. Our UGVs cost nothing like that.” A major cost-saving comes from the “semi-autonomous” nature of the UGVs. This autonomy is limited to waypointfollowing, with mission details automatically transmitted to the robots in real time from the user’s GCS, rather than needing to be stored and processed onboard. “Full autonomy is extremely costly to develop, so the mission computations happen in the background, from the UGVs’ perspective, but we are developing a more expensive [$30,950 per unit] UGV that will have greater autonomous capabilities, most importantly the ability to safely navigate between waypoints while GNSS-jammed or -spoofed,” Shvaydak says. Augmented reality The last part of the solution is an augmented reality (AR) system, to be used by the de-mining teams once Dropla’s detection and confirmation work is complete. A highly georeferenced photogrammetric map of the environment, constructed using all of the sensor data, collected and fused, is displayed into the de-miners’ goggles, transmitted over wi-fi from a wagonbased C4 station. “Building that map takes some time: if it’s a 30 hectare area, we can do the full circle of map generation in five hours,” Shvaydak says. “That encompasses February/March 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology A highly georeferenced photogrammetric map of the environment, fused from all of the collected sensor data, is displayed into AR goggles for de-miners to use One of the most important functions of Dropla’s UGVs is removing vegetation to clear paths for minesweepers; doing so manually occupies 95% of professional sappers’ time
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