What is it??

I've seen this thing flying around Bolton for a few days now, and this afternoon I got a few minutes to take a closer look:



All I can find on Google that's even remotely similar is this:



Airborne UXO Detection

The numbers reach the tens of millions in both acres and dollars. And the standard operating procedure literally has been pedestrian. Until now.

A team of researchers in a newly opened Battelle office in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is tackling the problem of UXO—unexploded ordnance—buried in an estimated 15 million acres of land and consuming upward of $200 million in cleanup costs each year.

The Battelle team has developed and refined several airborne systems for detecting UXO using magnetic fields, electromagnetic induction and global positioning systems. The technologies are essentially flying metal detectors.

Mounted on a commercial helicopter, the equipment is a rigid fixed boom configuration that has the capability of delivering data analysis, digital maps and target lists within hours. Battelle’s detection system has eight sensors, or magnetometers, and a sampling frequency of 1,200 hz, which yields a high density of data. To get the most specific data possible, the distance between the system and the ground is kept between one to three meters.

After a quick pass by the helicopter, the system is able to detect different sizes of munitions, all the way down to 60mm shells. That’s comparable to the capability of ground-based systems, but not nearly as time consuming or dangerous.

This must be either a newer version, or something similar but different. (And yes, that is what passes for deep insight and stellar grammar after a full day of work and a night at A&P school. Just consider yourself lucky that I haven't gotten to the beer yet!)