BIll Doll: Battelle Tool Built to Help Navy Dig for Bomb Debris

Battelle has developed a metal detecting tool for U.S. Navy helicopter crews to help cleanup personnel at the Pinecastle Bombing Range in Florida find bomb debris, the Orlando Sentinel reported Sunday.

Erica Rodriguez writes that the tool will be used to plot the locations of bomb and target debris on a heat map following pilot training exercises,

Jim Brantley, a Navy spokesman, said crews previously used hand-held metal detectors to find debris on foot, according to the report.

The airborne metal detector is built to detect metal buried under dirt as the helicopter carrying it hovers between 5 and 35 feet above ground.

“Most of the little metal detectors are set up to find things in the top foot or so. We can see large things if they’re down 15 to 20 feet,” said Bill Doll, a Battelle Memorial Institute researcher.

A Battelle and University of Tennessee team developed the tool at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The cleanup crew has already covered 10,000 acres of the range with the tool, the report said.