#mine detection

Mwajuma Abdalla Ngema went to the clinic in Dar es Salaam with a persistent cough and intense pain around her ribs. The mother of two was tested for tuberculosis (TB) but the result came back negative. “I was given some medication to manage the cough but the pain was unbearable,” says Ngema, who went home feeling frustrated at the lack of clarity over her health. A few days later, Ngema was called back to Mbagala Kizuiani clinic – she had subsequently tested positive. She was relieved to finally have a diagnosis: “I am currently on medication and on the road to recovery.” Robert Ndoto, 55, tells a similar story. Living with HIV, he is particularly susceptible to tuberculosis but his tests were also negative. A few days later he was told he did have TB. The diagnosis meant he could start medication for the bacterial infection, which he was able to access through Mkuta, a local health organisation that targets TB and HIV. “I was in bad shape when I met Salma Matamika [a volunteer with Mkuta]. I had listened to her give a talk about TB. She became the link between me and TB treatment,” he says. “If you have HIV and TB, you can easily die.” Unusually, Ngema and Ndoto’s revised TB diagnoses came after specially trained giant rats detected the disease in samples of the patients’ sputum, or mucus from the lungs and airways. The screening programme, run by a charity called Apopo, is only used in Tanzania and Ethiopia. They are among 30 countries on the World Health Organisation’s list of countries with a high TB burden.

This is one in a series presenting news on technology and innovation, made possible with generous support from the Lemelson Foundation.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Even when a war is over, the killing can continue. Land mines left behind in former conflict zones can still claim casualties. Now, researchers have developed a technique that can help spot one type of plastic-based mine. It’s a type that is very hard to spot. One day, this new technique might be used to locate and eliminate those explosives — especially in fields where children now play.

In late 1979, troops from the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, a nation in south-central Asia. In the more than nine years the Soviet troops were there, they spread a lot of land mines, says Alex Nikulin. He’s a geophysicist at Binghamton University in New York. These weren’t big explosives, the types designed to target tanks. Instead, the soldiers’ intent was to hurt or kill people. Made largely of plastic, these mines can be quite difficult to find the usual way — walking around with metal detectors.

PFM-1 “butterfly” mines (a non-explosive example at right) were dropped from helicopters in Afghanistan by the millions in the 1980s. At left is a metallic rack filled with such mines. It was used to dispense the mines from helicopters. CREDIT: T. deSmet et al/Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction 2018

Soviet helicopters dropped millions of these mines, each small enough to fit into the palm of an adult’s hand. Their official name is the PFM-1 mine. But owing to their shape, people often call them “butterfly mines,” notes Jasper Baur. He’s a geology student at Binghamton University. Baur was part of a team — one that included Nikulin — that developed the new mine-spotting technique.

The Soviets often painted the butterfly mines with colors that helped them blend into the background. That helps the human eye miss them, explains Baur. His team’s innovation relies on thermal inertia, a trait that many materials have. Inertia is the tendency of an object to remain in place, even if something is pushing on it. Thermal inertia is the tendency of an object to remain at a constant temperature even as its environment is warming or cooling down. So when air temperatures are changing fairly rapidly, an object lying on the ground may tend to retain its temperature longer than the rocks and soil around it. And a special camera that senses heat — or infraredwavelengths — should be able to highlight objects that are cooler or warmer than the ground around them.

Land mines (three of them, labeled A) are hard to see at this site in visible light. They show up well, however, in this image taken at infrared wavelengths. The metallic racks used to dispense such mines (B and C) also show up well. This is the innovation behind a new technology that could be used in de-mining efforts in Afghanistan. (Scale bar at right shows the temperatures of objects in the image.) CREDIT: T. deSmet et al/Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction 2018

To test the idea, the team mounted an infrared camera on a drone. Then they flew the robotic craft back and forth over an area. They had already placed a few faux mines at the site — ones with no explosives. They also added a few of the small metal racks used to hold such mines before they are dropped from a copter. Finally, the researchers used computer software to create video images from the drone’s camera data.

When the team analyzed the infrared images, it was often easy to eyeball the mines. They had been cooler than the surrounding rocks, making them show up as a different color on the image. That color difference was often stark in images taken some 30 minutes to 2 hours after sunrise. That’s when the land was warming quickly. The technique also worked well when data had been collected soon after sunset, as the land was cooling. These are times when the temperature difference between the mines and the rocks was typically greatest.

It is a well-known fact that the last war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was brutal in so many ways: the country and its people suffered many hardships. In addition to the thousands of people who lost their lives, and families who lost their homes, one of the terrible legacies of the war that erupted in the 1990s are mines left to lurk for their new victims. Landmines- weapons of war – have become weapons against civilians, making safe life and progress impossible. The demining process in BiH began immediately after the war, but the situation with minefields in this country is so complex that the demining process continues even today. Consequently, Bosnia and Herzegovina developed expertise in dealing with mine contamination, and has outstanding results in using mine detection dogs. One of the largest donors in mine action, the United States, initiated the establishment of the Mine Detection Dog Center in Bosnia and Herzegovina, abbreviated MDDC, in late 2002. Bosnia and Herzegovina received and still receives a great support, so we decided to return the favor through the training of mine detection dogs for partner organizations around the world. Mine detection dogs proved to be an excellent tool in reducing large mine suspected areas to actual mine contaminated area. The center was build outside the town of Konjic, in a modern facility with numerous buildings, offices, spacious kennels, veterinarian station and large training fields, all surrounded  with breathtaking mountains and lakes. 

New Unmanned System to Operate at Maritime Arena

The British Ministry of Defense (MoD) has unveiled a next-generation unmanned system, known as MAST-13, for the protection of the Royal Navy’s future ships from potential threats. MAST-13 is a 13m-long unmanned system that operates as a water-borne drone to identify mines and other t

Revolutionary Tech to Add Visual Aspect to Mine Detection

Clearing routes from hidden explosives and mine detection operations using the current minesweeping technology can sometimes pose risk to the soldiers. A revolutionary solution allows a better identification of potential threats has been recently developed. The US Army is developing a technology