A 17-year-old Ukrainian won a $100,000 prize for creating a minesweeper drone
17-year-old Ukrainian student Ihor Klymenko developed a drone that detects land mines. He was announced as the winner of the $100,000 Chegg 2022 prize.
In the 10th grade, Ihor became interested in quadcopters and drones. For the past two years, he has been working on his Quadcopter Mines Detector project, which he successfully presented at numerous competitions and exhibitions.
The boy was a finalist in the festival of innovative projects ‘Sikorsky Challenge 2021: Ukraine and the world’ and won a gold medal in the junior category at the 21st Malaysian Technology Exhibition (MTE) 2022. Igor’s minesweeper quadcopter received two official patents in Ukraine. It detects anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines and gives the coordinates of their location with an accuracy of two centimeters.
During the flight, the device sees mines from above. Igor is currently working on improving the drone by adding new technologies: spraying paint to mark the location of a mine and using AI technology to determine the type of mine and the best course of action for safe removal.
Ihor collaborated with scientists from around the world on the development of a drone, as well as with a humanitarian organization in Ukraine, which is engaged in demining the country’s post-war territories. Thanks to funding from the Finnish public organization Ministry of Good Spirit, which he received after participating in the Ukrainian-Finnish startup program, Ihor developed two prototypes of his device.
He is currently working with various organizations to develop a minimum viable product for rapid field deployment to help reduce the number of casualties from explosive devices.
