20. February 2025

Danish robot specialists develop technology for localising hidden dangers in Ukraine

Unexploded Russian shells and mines in Ukraine pose a significant threat across vast agricultural areas. Several Danish entities have joined forces to develop technology aimed at making the cleanup faster and less risky.

An area of 156,000 km² of land – equivalent to more than three times the size of Denmark – is estimated to be out of action in Ukraine. The reason is millions of unexploded shells and mines lurking beneath the surface.

In a development project called DISARM, Danish companies and knowledge organisations have now therefore taken the first steps toward safer and faster detection of unexploded ordnances (also known as UXOs in military terminology).

The method? Mobile robots and advanced sensors.

Kristian Skaarup, Director for Defence and Space Robotics at the Danish Technological Institute (DTI), elaborates:

– If Ukrainians are to cultivate their land and move around safely again, efforts to clear the country of these explosive, hidden dangers must be strengthened. To contribute to this, we have developed a robot concept consisting of a multi-sensor setup. It combines technologies such as ground-penetrating radars and magnetometers to increase the likelihood of detecting UXOs before people enter high-risk areas.

New technology

The robot is localising hidden dangers

Danish companies and knowledge organisations have taken the first steps toward safer and faster detection of unexploded ordnances (also known as UXOs in military terminology).

Robots in the danger zone instead of humans

Russia fires up to 10,000 shells per day at Ukraine, many of which do not explode upon impact. In addition, an unknown number of mines cover vast tracts of land in the country.
Currently, clearance is carried out manually using handheld metal detectors, which is time-consuming.

With estimates suggesting it could take up to 70 years to clear the affected areas in Ukraine and a shortage of trained personnel to perform the risky clearance, the need for innovative solutions is more urgent than ever.

– The current bomb and mine clearance processes are costly and extremely slow. By using robotics technology and combining advanced sensors, we are trying to make the clearance process faster, cheaper, and even more safe, says V’yacheslav Shvaidak, co-founder and CEO of Dropla, one of the project partners.

– The important goal is to help Ukrainians be able to cultivate their land again and move around safely. Anything we can do to automate the process and reduce the number of human personal within this field of work is a significant contribution, emphasises Bo Bischoff from Copenhagen Hazard Mapping, who has also contributed knowledge to the project.

The technology developed in DISARM is still in its early stages, and there is some way to go before it can be implemented in the field.

– We can see that the combination of sensors we initially tested works. We are now working on securing funding for further development and field testing of the technologies. It is a challenging task to solve, as unexploded ordnance can be at different depths depending on the soil type. So, there is still work to be done to improve reliability and reduce false positives – so the system does not react to every metal object in the soil, says Kristian Skaarup from DTI.

The project is a collaboration between:

Aalborg University
Dropla
Normark Defence
Capra Robotics
Hecto Drone
DTI

The project has been funded by the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science through Innovationskraftbevillingen 2021-2024.

Danish robot specialists develop technology for localising hidden dangers in Ukraine

The robot is localising hidden dangers

Robots in the danger zone instead of humans

The project is a collaboration between:

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