Next Generation of Detectors beyond the Equinox 800

maxxkatt

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My wife worked for Intel for many years. I remember back in the late 1970’s she brought home a chart that predicted the micro processing power for their chip line for the next 30 years. It was a steady upward curve from the old early pc chip the 8088. Guess what, it was almost dead on the money. Gordon Moore of Intel fame developed Moore’s Law states that processor speeds, or overall processing power for computers will double every two years and the price will continue to decrease.

Some say Moore’s law has hit a wall. I don’t think so. To get around that wall they invented multi-processors working in parallel. Want to know how small these processors are? See the image include with this article with an actual silicon wafer with hundreds of computer processor chips before they were cut into small chips and mounted in the casing. Keep in mind this wafer came from the late 1980’s. The micro processors of today are much smaller.

Here is how Garrett or any other metal detecting manufacture will get the jump on Minelab if they don’t do it first.

Technology everywhere is getting smaller, smarter and invading more products that were before just products that switch on and use.

The big new thing in software that makes these new powerful microprocessors useful is AI or artificial intelligence and machine learning where products that can actually learn.

In the present metal detecting world a small example of this I guess is the Equinox tracking ground balance. The microprocessor when told will keep auto adjusting your ground balance.

With the advances of AI, and machine learning here is what I think we may come to expect in our new metal detectors in the next five years.

You go to a hunt site and put your detector in the learn mode and swing over some of the ground and the detector will analyze the soil and perform automatic ground balance and also detect any noise interference and do an auto noise cancel.

While swinging it will analyze all of the signals beneath the coil and learn what is typically beneath the coil on this hunt. It will either already know what you are not looking for and not report at all the pull tabs, can slaw etc. It will also know when there is a good target. It will only report good targets.

How will it know this? There will be a reject button and on the last signal after you dig something that is junk, you press the reject learn button and the detector will know that this last signal is of no use to you and learn that information for future compares. It will store the complete data of the rejected signal. Millions of bits of information that go way beyond mere audio sounds and display readings. It will develop a complete profile on the unwanted target. It will do this for all the targets you dig and decide to manual learn reject until it no longer reports any of your junk targets.

On the flip side when you dig a good target like a silver dime or gold ring it again will store the huge amounts of data on the target when you pressed the accept learn button. Soon your detector on this hunt will know exactly what you are looking for and not looking for. Yes you can on the Equinox 800 reject and add to the discriminate functions so this type of learning is available, but on a very limited means. The new machine will be able to store millions of bits of information on all types of targets that your present day detectors are incapable of doing so.

You will be able to store these different hunt profiles to use later when you are hunting similar types of sites.

Remember these future microprocessors will be capable of storing much more detail data about good and bad targets than is now reported with our current detectors with tones and numbers. Tones are difficult for the average detectorists to really process the fine differences. Some detectorists with great hearing abilities and memories and determination can do this exceptionally well and are the more successful hunters.

But to the average detectorist deciding if the signal is a screw cap or silver coin can be a challenge. Not with the new breed of metal detectors using AI and machine learning capabilities. Ironically these new breed of AI detectors will evolve back into beep and dig detectors like the detectors of old but with almost absolute confidence on reporting only good targets.

These new detectors will have hundreds of gigabytes of storage to handle these new saved learned hunt profiles and the processor speeds will be 100X or 1000x the speed of current microprocessors of today able to pick out the even smallest differences and characteristics of these targets. They will absolutely know the difference between silver, copper, aluminum, iron, brass etc. Machine learning and AI is really about processor speed and storage. The rest is up to the machine language programmer who will write programs that allow our future metal detectors to learn from our actual usage of our metal detectors and only report the targets we are seeking.
 

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....While swinging it will analyze all of the signals beneath the coil and learn what is typically beneath the coil on this hunt. It will either already know what you are not looking for and not report at all the pull tabs, can slaw etc. It will also know when there is a good target. It will only report good targets.....


Katt-maxx : The evolution of computers and chips is all a function of "faster and smaller". And all that you are dreaming about, is not going to be solved by a function of "faster and smaller".

Think , for example, about the Spectrum & XLT. When that came out, there was initial speculation that ... since all the various targets had "signatures", that it could be put-to-use to differentiate gold rings from tabs, for instance. But it never quite worked that way, as you know. And no amount of "faster and smaller" changes the fact that there is still only so much signal you can pump into the ground, and only so much info you can bring back out of the ground. Ground is a solid object, after all.

And as you know, subtle differences in swing speed, coil height, tilt of target, ground minerals, depth of target, etc... all play a part on the exact TID signal you will get back. There's infinite variables on the targets we dig (eg.: shapes, sizes, weights of gold rings).

The only constant TID 'signature' we can count on, is USA coins. Since those are all identical. But to tell junk apart from gold rings, is not going to be solved with faster-&-smaller chips. Jewelry has infinite variations.
 
I can see and understand what the Maxxkatt is saying..And if you want the utmost information given on any target right now I’d hafto say The v3i gets the nod as we stand for doing that.
For me this is a hobbie,and although I do try out the new tech I’m not the guini pig I usto be,I’m pretty content on what I’ve been using what some consider older tech,f75,at pro,omegga,and Tesoro..And of course fbs...
I’ll never get rich at doing this,I do it cause it’s fun.If somone comes in behind me and finds somthing I miss that’s ok,cause I got what I got before him.lol.No need imo for newer tech unless you just gotta have every penny in the ground.
 
With the advances of AI, and machine learning here is what I think we may come to expect in our new metal detectors in the next five years.

You go to a hunt site and put your detector in the learn mode and swing over some of the ground and the detector will analyze the soil and perform automatic ground balance and also detect any noise interference and do an auto noise cancel.

While swinging it will analyze all of the signals beneath the coil and learn what is typically beneath the coil on this hunt. It will either already know what you are not looking for and not report at all the pull tabs, can slaw etc. It will also know when there is a good target. It will only report good targets.

How will it know this? There will be a reject button and on the last signal after you dig something that is junk, you press the reject learn button and the detector will know that this last signal is of no use to you and learn that information for future compares. It will store the complete data of the rejected signal. Millions of bits of information that go way beyond mere audio sounds and display readings. It will develop a complete profile on the unwanted target. It will do this for all the targets you dig and decide to manual learn reject until it no longer reports any of your junk targets.

On the flip side when you dig a good target like a silver dime or gold ring it again will store the huge amounts of data on the target when you pressed the accept learn button. Soon your detector on this hunt will know exactly what you are looking for and not looking for. Yes you can on the Equinox 800 reject and add to the discriminate functions so this type of learning is available, but on a very limited means. The new machine will be able to store millions of bits of information on all types of targets that your present day detectors are incapable of doing so.

You will be able to store these different hunt profiles to use later when you are hunting similar types of sites.

Remember these future microprocessors will be capable of storing much more detail data about good and bad targets than is now reported with our current detectors with tones and numbers. Tones are difficult for the average detectorists to really process the fine differences. Some detectorists with great hearing abilities and memories and determination can do this exceptionally well and are the more successful hunters.

But to the average detectorist deciding if the signal is a screw cap or silver coin can be a challenge. Not with the new breed of metal detectors using AI and machine learning capabilities. Ironically these new breed of AI detectors will evolve back into beep and dig detectors like the detectors of old but with almost absolute confidence on reporting only good targets.

These new detectors will have hundreds of gigabytes of storage to handle these new saved learned hunt profiles and the processor speeds will be 100X or 1000x the speed of current microprocessors of today able to pick out the even smallest differences and characteristics of these targets. They will absolutely know the difference between silver, copper, aluminum, iron, brass etc. Machine learning and AI is really about processor speed and storage. The rest is up to the machine language programmer who will write programs that allow our future metal detectors to learn from our actual usage of our metal detectors and only report the targets we are seeking.

I'm with ya here on some of this. I like the auto learn GB and noise cancel feature you just invented, and the super-processing signals ideas, but not the accept/reject trash vs good target AI programming as you describe. My hope, perhaps impossible dream, is that with enough data processing, and perhaps some crazy new coil technology and frequency mastery, and some serious artificial intelligence learning, that maybe, just maybe the machines could advance to a point where they start to differentiate signals from various metals; regardless of size and shape. The size and shape of each metal target will always get you in the TID ballpark, but perhaps there is a subtlety between a one inch wide gold "14" signal and a one inch wide aluminum "14" signal, that has yet been undiscovered. That's my hopeful dream anyway.
 
Imagine if you will...A rig similar to a Deus, where the batt is contained within the coil and the signal is sent to the readout on the stick as is now the design....EXCEPT, imagine the signal is sent to a set of glasses, where the TIDS and settings are displayed on the glasses lens akin to what an Apache Helicopter pilot sees....

Imagine that the audio is transmitted through the glasses bows to the ear bones via vibration instead of to the ear drums via membrane inducing soundwaves...

Imagine changing sense and disc and thresh and other parameters, a guy only needs to slide a finger along the length of the bow and tap the appropriate settings, seeing through the glasses lens the various modes, much like you now do on a cell phone...

This technology is already available and could be incorporated into our Sport..No more looking down at a screen, since its all right there on your glasses lenses, no more headphones, no more buttons or dials...
You pop on your glasses, fire up your rig, slide your finger along the bow to pick a menu and adjust the settings, tap and go...!

OK sure, maybe also a hat of some sort with solar panels on it to power the glasses..Heck lets throw in some radio stations or incoming phone calls if need be...to defray the initial R&D start up costs...:?:.
 
I definitely do not think that we have seen the last advances in detector electronics. I am an old rascal and I look back over my years and marvel at the changes I have seen. Heck I remember when transistors were the latest thing in electronics. I over the years I changed a lot of tubes in electronics equipment. I went from communicating using international morse code to using satellites to relay information in about 20 years. I have seen telephones go from being a box on the wall with a hand crank to a device that we carry in our pocket that contains more computing power than what was used to send man to the moon and back. I remember when it took a couple of hours to get a phone call patched thru from the east to the west coast.
 
Imagine if you will...A rig similar to a Deus, where the batt is contained within the coil and the signal is sent to the readout on the stick as is now the design....EXCEPT, imagine the signal is sent to a set of glasses, where the TIDS and settings are displayed on the glasses lens akin to what an Apache Helicopter pilot sees....

Imagine that the audio is transmitted through the glasses bows to the ear bones via vibration instead of to the ear drums via membrane inducing soundwaves...

Imagine changing sense and disc and thresh and other parameters, a guy only needs to slide a finger along the length of the bow and tap the appropriate settings, seeing through the glasses lens the various modes, much like you now do on a cell phone...

This technology is already available and could be incorporated into our Sport..No more looking down at a screen, since its all right there on your glasses lenses, no more headphones, no more buttons or dials...
You pop on your glasses, fire up your rig, slide your finger along the bow to pick a menu and adjust the settings, tap and go...!

OK sure, maybe also a hat of some sort with solar panels on it to power the glasses..Heck lets throw in some radio stations or incoming phone calls if need be...to defray the initial R&D start up costs...:?:.

Hey, that all sounds pretty slick! Too bad even this will be obsolete soon after it hits the market...thanks to Brain Wave Interaction Reception/Transmission technology, or BWIRT. Implants and endless upgrades and applications. Mind control Baby! That's the future! Alexa, Siri, Echo, etc. will look like Tinker Toys when BWIRT goes mainstream. You think the more advanced aliens from the other quadrants dink around with glasses and hats? They'll laugh and think "They're in The Dark Ages" :laughing:
 
I definitely do not think that we have seen the last advances in detector electronics. I am an old rascal and I look back over my years and marvel at the changes I have seen. Heck I remember when transistors were the latest thing in electronics. I over the years I changed a lot of tubes in electronics equipment. I went from communicating using international morse code to using satellites to relay information in about 20 years. I have seen telephones go from being a box on the wall with a hand crank to a device that we carry in our pocket that contains more computing power than what was used to send man to the moon and back. I remember when it took a couple of hours to get a phone call patched thru from the east to the west coast.

remember the old person-to-person long distance cheat game? When your friends or relatives arrived home from a long car trip before the Interstate highway system and driving on all those two lane roads resulted in some head on collisions, especially going through the mountains.

You would make a long distance person-to-person expensive call back to your relatives and ask for yourself and of course the person on the other would say you were not there and thus not accept the charges and not get billed for the call and know that you arrived safely. Long distant phone calls were very expensive.

so now we call every were in the US on our cell phones virtually free. I know we talk about the past as the good old days, but some things need to be left in the past.
 
The function of a metal detector is not to detect metal. The function is to present information to the user which will cause a “change in state” in the user. If the detector’s information/impulse to the user does not cause the user to react, it is doing nothing useful.

Mud and others have great ideas about how the presentation of information could be improved to increase the likelihood that a given returned signal, processed by the detector could more effectively produce the necessary “change of state” in the user. No doubt future improvements in presentation of the detectors output will occur.

The big problem is at the other end. Physics has yet to provide a way to discriminate metallic targets in ways other than phase shift of AC signals or time constant related signal strength measurement (or some combination thereof).

In both of these methods, target composition, shape, mass, orientation and even temperature cause the return signal to be altered. In addition, the presence of ground mineralization further complicates any effort to correctly classify the nature of the target.

Alexandre Tartar, the developer of the soon to be released Fisher Impulse AQ beach detector is a very clever Physicist. He worked long on a project to classify targets using AI methods to match “patterns” in returned signals in order to classify targets. He even brought a detector called Titanium Adonis to market in France which claimed this capability. It did not live up to expectations and was cancelled. It’s tough.

The tiny microvolt level signals generated by metallic targets when excited by a metal detector’s transmitted signal are very difficult to squeeze useful information out of. To go much beyond the level of today’s machines which use sophisticated digital signal processing chips to analyze these faint signals and return useful information to the user would likely require very sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms.

One small problem with that. If you are and engineer capable of doing that level of AI work, you are being headhunted by the likes of Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and thousands of other high tech firms with deep pockets. Your annual salary is likely well up in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and you have fat stock option grants tied to performance.

Metal detector companies are tiny. The two biggest, First Texas and Microsoft (maybe add Garrett to the list) have annual sales in the $100 million range. Peanuts. Not nearly enough money to afford the kind of breakthrough
 
Lytle78 hit on something and I will add to his post.

Plus our hobbyists user base is probably in the hundreds of thousands if that, not millions and billions like Google, Apple, Facebook, Intel, Amazon are targeting. These giants have huge revenue streams and can pour hundreds of millions of R&D dollars to provide benefits to their huge customer base.

So the number guys at the metal detector manufacturers just simply say to the designers here is your R&D budget for the year and that is that.

For the kind of technological break throughs we are dreaming about they simply won't happen because of the R&D costs that would be far above what any of the hobbyist market could justify support.
 
I was an Electronic Technician for many years. I worked for Wang Labs in Tewksbury MA. Wang was the first manufacturer that allowed different company's computers to "talk" to each other such as Compu Graphic and IBM etc' , it was called Wang Net. I'm amazed how far micro technology has come.
 
Max you know i, as an upstanding citizen, would never have done somethinglike that. Only every time i got back to base after visiting the young lady that i was dating. For some reason i was never there when i called to speak to me. After all those phone calls, Lots of letters and every weekend that i could she finally agreed to marry me. I think she likes me as she has stuck with me for nearly 55 years.






remember the old person-to-person long distance cheat game? When your friends or relatives arrived home from a long car trip before the Interstate highway system and driving on all those two lane roads resulted in some head on collisions, especially going through the mountains.

You would make a long distance person-to-person expensive call back to your relatives and ask for yourself and of course the person on the other would say you were not there and thus not accept the charges and not get billed for the call and know that you arrived safely. Long distant phone calls were very expensive.

so now we call every were in the US on our cell phones virtually free. I know we talk about the past as the good old days, but some things need to be left in the past.
 
Lytle78 hit on something and I will add to his post.

Plus our hobbyists user base is probably in the hundreds of thousands if that, not millions and billions like Google, Apple, Facebook, Intel, Amazon are targeting. These giants have huge revenue streams and can pour hundreds of millions of R&D dollars to provide benefits to their huge customer base.

So the number guys at the metal detector manufacturers just simply say to the designers here is your R&D budget for the year and that is that.

For the kind of technological break throughs we are dreaming about they simply won't happen because of the R&D costs that would be far above what any of the hobbyist market could justify support.
 
Lytle78 hit on something and I will add to his post.

Plus our hobbyists user base is probably in the hundreds of thousands if that, not millions and billions like Google, Apple, Facebook, Intel, Amazon are targeting. These giants have huge revenue streams and can pour hundreds of millions of R&D dollars to provide benefits to their huge customer base.

So the number guys at the metal detector manufacturers just simply say to the designers here is your R&D budget for the year and that is that.

For the kind of technological break throughs we are dreaming about they simply won't happen because of the R&D costs that would be far above what any of the hobbyist market could justify support.

'For the kind of technological break throughs we are dreaming about they simply won't happen because of the R&D costs that would be far above what any of the hobbyist market could justify support."

XXX2. This hobby won't support it if it isn't fast and cheap to maker. We have hit the ceiling. It is all about final overhead.
 
The ad may read like this;
New for the 2020 metal detecting season,
the creators from Mine Lab technologies,
that created proven detectors such as
the E-trac, the Ctx 30/30 and the Equinox 600 & 800.....
have once again revolutionized the metal detecting industry,
By creating the new, Mine Lab ECLIPSE 900
with great functions as its predecessors have,
but now with new capabilities for the 2020 season the ECLIPSE 900,
having ULTRA SOUND capabilities
will let you virtually see your detected treasure before you recover it.
no more trash, no more screw caps, no more pull tabs,
no more unwanted targets.
100% water proof up to 200 ft deep, completely wireless,
blue tooth technology, Gps capable to track and map your hunts,
A built in Wi-Fi alert system,that lets you know when
the nearest coin star machine is in use
11 preset programs ( like spinal tap 11 :lol: ),
such as, cache seeker, tot lot gold, curb strip cop, ghetto gold & jewelry,
cherry pick park (custom mode for mudd puppy) finds cans and food
Cow-pie (colonial copper field & pasture program),
bullets & buttons (civil war relics),
Hobo nickel (designed especially for hunting on or near railroad tracks)
and 3 beach programs,
trashy beach,
nudist beach,
trashy nudist beach :laughing:
 
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I used to work for intel also and just getting into MDing. I'm surprised at the lack of intelligence these machines have today considering how fast the processors have become
 
'For the kind of technological break throughs we are dreaming about they simply won't happen because of the R&D costs that would be far above what any of the hobbyist market could justify support."....


I disagree. It's not about supply & demand, profit motive, research funds, etc.....

Because all the "technological breakthroughs" that we have in computers, smart-phones, cameras, etc.... : Is all a function of faster and smaller electronics. But with metal detectors, there is an evil called: "The law of physics". There is only so much signal you can pump into the solid ground, and only so much information you can pull back out of it.

And no amount of "faster and smaller" is going to change that. So you can not compare the evolution of our other electronic marvels, to metal detectors. And it has nothing to do with profit motive, etc...
 
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