It may be worth noting that, because of the magnetic nature of the anomalies, they may be breaking fairly new ground in terms of the engineering of things like the rover - there are, after all, commercially produced remote controlled robot cameras used by police/special forces all over the world.

The ADD itself wouldn't, I imagine, be a new concept - it's only something that detects magnetic sources/radio frequency sources. It perhaps taps into the satellite netowrk to locate the actual sites of the anomalies. If all this is simply a twist on technology we already have - the developing of new use, rather than new techniques - it's not unreasonable that Connor could be entrusted with over seeing the direction of the project.