Posted by Tom Yochum on December 11, 2009 at 2:03pm
I read in Aviation Week (Nov 16th issue) about the International Astronautical Federation and the Minseeker Foundation teaming up to study landmine detection from space. Landmines are a terrible leftover from war in many developing countries. There are an estimated 100 million landmines in the world, and they kill or maim 15,000 to 20,000 people each year. Many international organizations are working on ways to efficiently remove these landmines.This got me thinking about the feasability of using an inexpensive UAV as a minesweeping platform.The biggest hurdle, or course, is developing a payload that could detect landmines from the air. I figure if someone thinks they could do this from low earth orbit, they could make a smaller package that could do it from 100 feet. Does anyone know of anyone doing research into this sort of thing? Anyone have a grad student friend looking for a research project? I am sure there is research money out there to fund this sort of project.What would be required from an aircraft perspective? Again the payload size and weight would ultimately dictate the airframe, propulsion, and other parameters. But what about the avionics? Could ArduPilot provide the navigation, sensor orientation and geolocation information with sufficient accuracy? Could it maintain a desired altitude above ground (using a laser or sonar altitude sensor)?Is this just a science-fiction fantasy?Tom
blimps are not for accurate positioning outdoors, plus are very vulnerable to shrapnels and have very high inertia, what is not acceptable operationally.
Next best live thing would be ground hog or pig than elephant ( I have seen one poor thing which lost its leg in Discovery channel being fitted with prosthtic leg! :( ) , They have know to he trained and used to find buried roots with their excelent smelling ability. Any way all this has nothing to do with DIYdrones :))
We all forgot blimp based solution , they can fly low, slow and carry heavy load and with slow scanning mode it offers good potential .It just occurred to be , blimp why not?!!!
Well this is all a bad idea.
Any influence fades with 1/r^2
a detector at 50cm (buried mine) vs and aircraft at 50m is... (50/0.5)^2=10000 times more sensitive due to distance alone.
watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCVC5Hzb1Nw&NR=1&feature=fvwp
0:05
I think Elephants are doing a fairly good mine sweeping job in the new extension of the Kruger Park I have heard its thought that they are learning what mines smell like, http://www.peaceparks.org/News_1090000000_8_0_0_0_743_Kavango-Zambe... It would be a fantastic project for a UAS, airships were originally going to be used. I pm'd my chum Kai so hopefully he will pop up with the latest news on these things!!
There is also the issue of creating a system robust enough to be used in the third world. Personally I would go the route of a Caterpillar D9 with a remote control.
So AP can be fixed to cattle and guide over suspected areas ;o , well then you have to deal with blue cross :(, I agree it would be almost impossible to detect the small antipersonal plastic/non ferous mines from even low (Nothing I guess can beat the hands, eyes & feel of human sapper/ anti mining expert) height when big IED have eluded experts on the ground. how about small ground penetrating radars ( I know it would rough on AP, RC and other electronics in UAV) with 200mhz radar signal? May RC helli can be fitted with GPR with proper shielding but weight !!!?
Look at Walter Reed. It is full of guys with legs and arms blown off by mines and their modern, bigger equivalent, so called IED's . These are very large artillery shells stuffed with HE. If the US military find it that hard to find these from a range of a few meters, think how hard it will be from a drone of a few kilos, from 100 meters at 60 kph.
The worst mines are are the little plastic ones that look like little frogs. They never degrade and kids find them interesting. Try finding them from space.
A few years ago when BSE was infecting cattle , a clever guy in Ethiopia imported a few ship loads and let them loose in a few hills that were know to be full of mines. A few hundred explosions later, the hills were clear for use.
Comments
Any influence fades with 1/r^2
a detector at 50cm (buried mine) vs and aircraft at 50m is... (50/0.5)^2=10000 times more sensitive due to distance alone.
watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCVC5Hzb1Nw&NR=1&feature=fvwp
0:05
Look at Walter Reed. It is full of guys with legs and arms blown off by mines and their modern, bigger equivalent, so called IED's . These are very large artillery shells stuffed with HE. If the US military find it that hard to find these from a range of a few meters, think how hard it will be from a drone of a few kilos, from 100 meters at 60 kph.
The worst mines are are the little plastic ones that look like little frogs. They never degrade and kids find them interesting. Try finding them from space.
A few years ago when BSE was infecting cattle , a clever guy in Ethiopia imported a few ship loads and let them loose in a few hills that were know to be full of mines. A few hundred explosions later, the hills were clear for use.
Not that teh powers that be would admit it...
There are 10`s of 1000`s of RM45`s and KM12`s, both britsh manufactured....
Just a sad fact....now we have the problem..maybe we can find a solution, or at least part of one!
Doc.
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