New Technology for Landmine Detection

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

The ground is covered in leaves, stones and roots; the tall trees cast a pattern of light and shadows on the path that leads through mountainous terrain. At first glance, the Colombian jungle looks idyllic. But appearances can be deceiving. Even though Colombia has not experienced any military conflicts, many areas are teeming with land mines which had been laid by guerrilla forces and members of drug cartels.

During a visit to mine detection training grounds in Colombia, RUB engineers Dr Christoph Baer and Jan Barowski had the chance to experience first-hand how treacherously the traps are hidden.

More than 9,000 Colombians had fallen victim to landmines between 2000 and 2012. According to conservative estimates, another 200,000 booby traps still exist in the country. In the recent year, the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla force agreed to conduct comprehensive mine clearance. But how is it supposed to work in practice?

The mines laid in Colombia had not been industrially manufactured. The correct term is improvised explosive devices. The guerrilla fighters put them together from everyday items that happened to be at hand. “That is a problem for detection,” says Christoph Baer from the Institute of Electronic Circuits, which is headed by Prof Dr Thomas Musch. “Acting according to the principle ‘If I find one of them, I’ll find them all’ is not productive at all.”

Together with colleagues from Technical University Ilmenau and with their Colombian partners, the engineers from Bochum are developing a new detection method, in order to optimise humanitarian mine clearance in Colombia. At RUB, Christoph Baer pursues this objective in collaboration with Jan Barowski and Jochen Jebramcik (fig. 2) from the Institute of Microwave Systems, where the chair is held by Prof Dr Ilona Rolfes.

Currently, the Colombian military is searching for mines using metal detectors. But due to the low metal content in those mines, the detectors have to be extremely sensitive, and, consequently, they locate all kind of items. “Only one in 2,000 found objects is a mine,” explains Christoph Baer. This renders the search extremely difficult. The team wishes to redress the problem by introducing sophisticated radar technology.

They are aiming at developing a handheld device that will detect different mine types on rough terrain without fail and that can be carried as easily as a metal detector. “However, we won’t achieve this goal by the end of the current funding period,” says Baer. The German Research Foundation is financing the project “Humanitarian Microwave Detection of Improvised Explosive Devices in Colombia”, short Medici, for the duration of 24 months. In order to realise a prototype, the researchers estimate they will require an additional two to three years.

In the current funding phase, they intend to provide the technological basis for the design of a handheld device. The Medici team focuses on Ground Penetrating Radar, a technology that is also used by archaeologists. However, conventional systems are unsuitable for their purposes.

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