With current technology, it will take more than 70 years and cost 33.5 billion euros to demine Ukraine, which has a mined area of 144,000 sq. km. Now, a Ukrainian tech entrepreneur in Denmark aims to make demining Ukraine cheaper, faster and safer. He has moved to Odense to accelerate development of his robotics and drone solution after being selected by Odense Robotics StartUp Fund for a place at the incubator at DTI. Part of the solution is already being manufactured and tested in Ukraine.
“Ukraine is the most mined country in the world today. The current mine clearing process is painfully slow, dangerous and costly. Ukraine just doesn’t have the time to wait or money to invest,” says V’yacheslav Shvaidak, Co-founder and CEO of Dropla Tech ApS.
“With current technologies, it costs about 1-3 euros to demine one square metre. By leveraging robotics and AI, we can make demining faster, cheaper and more secure. We estimate that our solution could reduce the price of demining one square metre to 10 cents and reduce the time needed from 70 years to 12.”
Demining
Demining is also a matter of food security. Prior to the Russian invasion, Ukraine was an important global food supplier, feeding more than 400 million people
worldwide and accounting for 10% of all crops sold, according to the UN. Yet Russia’s invasion has devastated food security in the country, says the 33-year-old former lieutenant.
“Today, 26,000 sq. km. of agricultural land in liberated areas have been impacted by landmines and unexploded ordnance because of Russian aggression. That’s the equivalent of half of Denmark. The agricultural land, due to its high economic output and critical importance of food security, is a number one priority to demine,” says Shvaidak.
Dropla is a tool to assist demining operations. The landmine detection platform combines drone swarm technology equipped with multi-modal sensor fusion and a fleet of unmanned ground vehicles that enable safety zone confirmation.
Swarm
While most demining solutions use one drone at a time, Dropla deploys a swarm of six UAVs simultaneously, making it possible to cover a larger area, faster – as much as 0.5 sq. km. per day. The drones detect landmines through optical, magnetic and electromagnetic sensors and send data to a computing station, which creates a georeferenced digital surface map showing the location of threats.
Then, Dropla’s remote-controlled ground preparation UGVs remove vegetation and make sure that no threats are left undetected. These UGVs are designed to withstand a detonation of anti-personnel landmines that could have been missed in the initial survey. The result is that the land is safe for the demining squad to enter and perform demining.
The Ukrainian government’s demining organisations, the Emergency State Service of Ukraine and the State Transport Special Service, are currently testing Dropla’s UGVs.
These are manufactured by Dropla Tech’s production team in the country and cost just EUR 10,000, a fraction of the 1.2-1.5 million euro cost for legacy type remote-controlled ground preparation vehicles for mine clearance.
Neural networks
Dropla’s neural networks are trained on data from more than 300 landmines and UXOs gathered from their own testing site in Ukraine. The combined drone swarming solution is still in development and due to be ready in six months. Dropla aims to be the biggest provider of training datasets for AI capabilities in landmine detection delivering 1.8m labelled frames by the end of 2024.
Dropla Tech Aps has now been selected by the Odense Robotics StartUp Fund for a place at the startup hub at the Danish Technological Institute (DTI). Here, the startup will get help to strengthen his business plan, develop his technology and access funding. V’yacheslav is in no doubt that Odense and Denmark – with its wealth of expertise in robotics – is the right place to accelerate Dropla Tech.
“I chose Odense as Dropla’s new headquarters because the city is for robotics just like Florence was for the renaissance art. There’s a critical mass of robotics, automation and drone experts here that you can’t find many other places and I want to be part of this unique nexus event. My focus now is making the sensor fusion and swarming solution ready for use in Ukraine, while strengthening the defence startup ecosystem,” says Shvaidak.
Military support
Denmark has allocated over DKK 60 billion for military support to Ukraine, including a programme to purchase equipment from Danish companies. Dropla Tech plans to enter this procurement process.
V’yacheslav left Ukraine a week before the war broke out. A lieutenant in the tank division in Ukraine, he thought he could do more good using his skills in Denmark, bringing resources and capabilities to Ukraine, than at the front line. V’yacheslav is 33 years old and holds a PhD in economics as well as a master’s degree in technical engineering.
The Odense Robotics StartUp Fund provides robotic and drone entrepreneurs with access to capital, mentoring, network and one of Europe’s leading startup hubs at the Danish Technological Institute in Odense, Denmark.
The commercial foundation helps early-stage startups realise their full potential and accelerate their journey from idea to launch. This is achieved through a tailored programme that leverages Denmark’s world-leading expertise in robotics technology.
