Mobile Mine Detector Could Clear Millions of Landmines

By: | February 16th, 2014

Over 100 million of killing mines across the world

Landmines are killing and injuring tens of thousands of people every year. By some estimates, there are over 100 million active landmines still buried in more than 76 countries across the globe, all just waiting to kill innocent people.  These landmines can remain active for over 50 years.

Robots can detect the mines without risking human lives

Each year, around 100,000 mines explode, killing thousands of people. It would take years to detect and clear up all of them. We need robots to handle this large volume mine detection work without risking human lives.

This mobile mine detector robot can save thousands of lives

A team from the Institute of Systems and Robotics at Portugal’s University of Coimbra has developed a landmine detector robot to assist in clearing the millions of active land mines around the globe. Last year, Canadian company Clearpath Robotics donated this Husky Robot to Coimbra.

Engineers at the University of Coimbra then modified this open-source, all-terrain robot. They equipped it with sensors, stereo vision, GPS, a laser and an arm that holds a metal detector and radar system. This mobile mine detector robot would be able to locate the buried mines, helping humans in exceedingly dangerous de-mining efforts.

Nidhi Goyal

Nidhi is a gold medalist Post Graduate in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

More articles from Industry Tap...