Game Changer Innovation Scaling Safety: NoMoreMines Drone Fleet Concept

Modular, container-based clearance where each added drone increases throughput for post-conflict, military and civil-protection missions. A game changer in global mine clearance.

The NoMoreMines approach is based on a simple principle: keeping humans as far away from explosives as possible and letting machines do the dangerous, repetitive work. At the heart of this approach is a heavy-lift drone protected by Kevlar that can do much more than fly over minefields. It surveys the ground, interacts with it, neutralises buried threats and generates a digital, auditable record of every square metre it covers.

Each intervention on the ground is linked to precise positioning

What sets NoMoreMines apart is its ability to bridge the gap between 'we think this area is safe' and 'we can prove it'. Each intervention on the ground is linked to precise positioning and system telemetry, creating a structured, georeferenced record of where the drone has operated and the results obtained. Rather than relying on manual logbooks or incomplete reports, the authorities receive a consistent, machine-generated clearance dossier that they can review, archive and use as evidence. This is particularly important in post-conflict settings, where questions of liability, donor scrutiny and public expectations require robust evidence.

Safety improvements are experienced by both sides. For civilians, faster and more scalable clearance means farmland, housing and infrastructure corridors can be put to productive use earlier in the reconstruction cycle. As each operation is transparently documented, communities and local authorities can trust that an area is genuinely safe. For operators, the difference is even more tangible: rather than kneeling in front of an unknown object with a probe, they now work from a containerised base station that provides power, battery management, rod reloads and communications. From this hub, they can plan and supervise missions while the armoured, instrumented and expendable drone absorbs the residual risk of blasts or fragmentation. A platform can be repaired or replaced, but a skilled deminer cannot.

Customers to size their fleet

The overall architecture is designed to be scalable. The container functions as an autonomous hub and each drone essentially acts as a modular tool head, which can be added to or removed from the system as demand changes. When more drones are connected to a hub, throughput increases almost linearly, subject only to airspace management and practical logistics. This enables customers to size their fleet according to their mission profile: one aircraft for small or highly complex sites, and several working in parallel for wide corridors, large agricultural areas, and long infrastructure routes. As the hub can operate using solar and wind power with battery storage when grid connections are unavailable, operations can continue for weeks or months, even in remote or heavily damaged regions.

The implications extend beyond humanitarian demining. In military contexts, NoMoreMines drones can be used to clear and verify safe passageways through minefields for manoeuvre units. This provides commanders with data-backed information on which routes are safe for follow-on forces and logistics. Unlike many traditional breaching systems, which rely on large explosive charges, this approach does not introduce additional blast effects to the battlefield and is therefore better suited to urban environments and areas near critical infrastructure or sensitive regions, where minimising collateral damage is paramount. These core capabilities also translate into civil protection and disaster response applications. After flooding, landslides or prolonged saturation, the subsurface structure of dirt roads and embankments can be highly uncertain. NoMoreMines drones can be deployed ahead of convoys to assess ground conditions and load-bearing capacity, ensuring that heavy vehicles such as fire engines, engineering equipment and mobile hospitals are not driven onto compromised routes unknowingly.

New operational model that treats interaction with the ground

The system delivers a consistent data product as well as physical intervention across all use cases, including post-conflict clearance, military breaching, civil protection and disaster relief. Commanders, engineers and civil authorities receive structured, georeferenced records detailing what was done, where it was done and the outcome. This consistent data layer enables better after-action reviews, supports legal and regulatory oversight, and ultimately raises the standard of accountability in environments where failure can have deadly consequences. In this respect, NoMoreMines is less about a single drone and more about a new operational model that treats interaction with the ground as both a safety-critical service and a source of hard evidence. This model is scalable not by sending more people into danger, but by adding more autonomous machines to the field

These works served as the basis for a patent application filed with the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA). In addition, a positive PCT report was issued confirming the novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability of the patent. 

Author: Prof. Dr. habil. Nicholas H. Müller, Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt/Germany, Faculty of Computer Science and Business Information Systems, Research-Professorship Socioinformatics and Societal Aspects of Digitalization, Head of the IDIS Institute, Institute for Design and Information Systems Postal address: Münzstraße 1297070 Würzburg/Germany, +49 931 3511-8186
+49 172 4719548 nicholas.mueller@thws.de