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Laser Imaging Drone To Hunt Out Unexploded Bombs In War-Torn Nations
An anonymous reader writes Aerial imaging firm Arch Aerial has discussed its hopes to deploy drones to map out mine fields and locations littered with unexploded bombs from historical warfare. CEO Ryan Baker suggested that his company wants to start the program in Laos, the world's most heavily bombed country. The 'octocopter' technology will work using a remote laser imaging platform called LIDAR to analyze fields and identify sites where UXO is likely to be uncovered. The sensor technology LIDAR is a crucial system in the design as it can easily see through vegetation and creates detailed maps of the terrain. Surveyors will be then be able to use the maps to look for topographical signs which suggest past bombing activity.
...and I still wouldn't go anywhere near that ground. Too many pink mist incidents in places that have been subject to GROUND searches.
I read a really good article on this ages ago that went into some of the challenges. The military is very efficient at clearing minefields for military use. The thing is, that just means clearing a narrow path of the really nasty stuff so that things like armored vehicles can drive through with an acceptable level of losses (by combat standards). If going via an unmined route will cause you 10k casualties, but clearing an alternate route through a minefield will only get 100 soldiers killed, then the minefield is preferable. The troops would be travelling defined routes, would probably have some level of protection (even on foot), and are just going to be there for a short time. Getting 95% of the mines near the path might be a completely acceptable level of success.
Civilian demining is an entirely different ballpark. It isn't acceptable that only 100 kids die playing in a field, you can't just put up a sign that says "stay on this well-marked path" and ignore kids who deviate to go play in the grass, and people want to go back to normal life. 95% is no longer good enough.
In order to be effective at all mines cannot be trivially avoidable, which means they're generally not reliably detectable.
...and I still wouldn't go anywhere near that ground. Too many pink mist incidents in places that have been subject to GROUND searches.
It sounds like the target market is places where the problem is along the lines of "Hey, impoverished local government, you have a zillion acres of variously vegetated former combat zone and no idea where to even start sending in the deminers. Would you prefer to guess blindly or have a (relatively) cheap map with 'probably some bombing over here' marked where applicable?"
Given how much of the world's UXO and especially ill-documented mines fall in places that are poor, somewhat weakly governed, and not necessarily equipped with even decent topographical maps for their entire area, there is probably a lot of room for solutions that can beat 'peasants finding them one limb at a time' as long as they don't cost too much.
It's like healthcare: Sure, "Go to a first world teaching hospital with a superb reputation" isn't a bad idea; but for the almost-everyone who would find that advice irrelevant, there's a lot to be said for trying to take on the low hanging fruit, given that the alternative is basically nothing.