Bath University has been awarded funding to further develop a new method for detecting landmines, which uses a combination of 3D cameras and metal detecting technology.
The £100,000 of funding, provided by Sir Bobby Charlton’s charity Find A Better Way, was awarded via a competition organised by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
“The UN estimates that it would take more than 1,100 years to clear the estimated 110 million landmines situated in 70 countries,” said Charlton. “As a charity we are determined to find a practicable technology solution that can bring an end to this humanitarian tragedy.”
Modern landmines are usually made from plastic rather than metal, rendering traditional techniques for identifying them useless. The team from Bath University is looking to combine metal detection with new imaging technology that relies on 3D cameras, allowing for all types of landmines to be identified.
“Currently, manual metal detectors sweep minefields in a slow and time-consuming process which cannot detect non-metallic landmines,” said Dr Manuchehr Soleimani, associate professor in the Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering and leader of the Engineering Tomography Lab (ETL) at Bath University.
“We aim to develop an integrated technology to detect both metallic and non-metallic landmines and to improve the speed and reliability of this process.”
That integrated technology includes two different types of array, so that older, metal landmines can be detected, as well as the newer plastic landmines that have begun to proliferate.
These landmines can cost as little as £2 to manufacture, while the cost of finding and clearing an individual mine can range anywhere from £120 to £600, according to the University of Bath.
“The innovative idea in this project is a combination of capacitive array and inductive array, so that both classification of electrical properties and detection of non-metallic (and metallic) landmines can be done,” Dr Soleimani told The Engineer.
“The capacitive array works a bit like a touch screen, and the inductive array is like a metal detector. We were able to develop 3D subsurface imaging in our lab and also able to do some initial feasibility tests representing simple scenarios of landmines in the lab.”
The research project, which will take place over the next three years, aims to not only to develop a detector that will work for all landmines across all terrain, but one that can also be produced relatively cheaply, thus helping to reduce the overall cost of clearing minefields.
“We’re hoping to develop a compact, low cost version of this combined smart camera that can be deployed in landmine detection,” said Dr Soleimani.
More details on Find a Better way can be found at the following address: http://www.findabetterway.org.uk/
I hope that the ‘sewers’ of these disgusting items -and particularly those who made (and profited from such) and authorized the positioning of such- are lining-up to be part of the clean-up operation. They made money from the start of the exercise: let them do the same at the end. Particularly if they are personally doing the finding. Actually, if anyone knows where they are, they surely do? If “the polluter pays” is the watch-word for Environmental agencies that surely is the vehicle for successful clearance. Even if the final payment is terminal?
Actually, the mine manufacturers already do make money from removal of their mines.
Before the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention came into effect there was a large and well-known European weapons manufacturer that was making money selling mines.
They also made money running training courses for the people they sold mines to in order to teach how to maximise the impact of the mines.
And then they made more money by training other people how to detect, disarm and neutralise the mines that they had made, and taught people how to use.
Then finally, they joined a consortium of European companies and got really substantial humanitarian funding in order to develop new technologies to locate the hard-to-detect mines that they had made, and had profited from teaching people how to use and how to remove.
And at the same time they got substantial military funding to develop the next generation of weapons to replace landmines.
Nothing out of the ordinary here…
Yet another example of those whose livelihoods depend on the ‘conflict’, (and prolonging it!) not its outcome! [Vicars, lawyers, military?] Some years ago, I had a letter published in the Times defining this: the next day! there was another from a general no less,[Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells?] who had obviously spluttered in his corn-flakes reading mine. Throughout my career I have always known when my views hit the spot: by the venom that they engender in those who believe they are being described. ‘If the cap fits….’
Presumably, as Engineers and technologists [and the ONLY groups who have the training, skill, experience and ability to create manufacture and deploy these terrible items (and I include all weapons and their means of delivery) in the present century of technology, the solution is simple. Stop doing so: and apply our skills to the Ascent of Mankind!
Missed this article first time round – I am surprised there are not more comments by now. As for MB’s (usually helpful) remarks, when I commented with ideas in another engineering magazine, they made fun of it. Some years back, certainly before Sir Bobby Charlton’s admirable initiative in 2011.
An inclusive/generic name for these obscenities is UXO, and there happens to be a good lay-person’s account of their patient & painstaking removal by Dervla Murphy in her travel book “One Foot in Laos” (2001). Removing the residue of hugely wasteful and misdirected aerial bombing by the USA in that part of SE Asia, more than 40 years ago.
The best-serious bit in the former correspondence was the military officer explaining the difference in product/specification required for civilian rather than military mine clearance. The civilian, needing something close to 100% effectiveness, however long it takes.
The whole mess, having since been added to by the use of cheap “IED’s” in several fields of conflict.
Let’s have more from the Engineer, please. IF there is more to know or learn/use our INGENUITY, on this topic..”..we should at least be trying to make our planet as inhabitable as possible in the meantime, where …(presently) millions tread in fear for life and limb”.
I am reminded of the first paragraph on page 1 of the Army Cadets manual on Explosives.[Which I was issued in 1957]
“Explosives are substances which explode!.” Just about says it all, if the Army has to start that simple!
Just for the record: one of my last projects as a consultant was to assist in the development of a mechanism to try to counter-act IEDs that were positioned at the road-side, set at an angle upwards and aimed into the side- window of military vehicles. The drivers initially and too often had these open (Iraq and Afghanistan are hot places) and the effect was not good. We worked on a combination of air-bag (rapid deployment) technology and the protection afforded by the fabrics used to make the suits that operatives who use chain-saws are given. These do not work by stopping’ the blade from cutting but when they do ‘jamb’ the blade to contain its energy. Think the ‘stingers’ used to stop speeding criminals used by the Police: which now wrap around the wheels rather than puncturing the tyres. Having recently read about the work to ‘contain’ explosions in luggage (using a shear energy increasing gel, perhaps there is a contribution for these two technologies to make together.
Mike B
Perhaps you think the first paragraph in a a manual aimed at 13 to 16 year olds from a variety of backgrounds and interests should look more like this?
C6H12O6(s)+6O2(g) –> 6CO2(g)+6H2O(g) (Thank You Qi)
Of course this particular equation only works for those cadets of Mack Sennate’s “Keystone cops”involved in the custard wars of the early 1920’s.
I for one am glad that such manuals start simple and work upwards, personally not having your obvious super powers of instant understanding and perfect and total wisdom.
The idea of large surfaces catching and distributing violent forces though is an excellent one. I hope that we do see the death of terrorist attacks by bombs in the cargo hold that other items in this publication discuss. There must be plenty of scope for using the principles of non newtonian fluids to prevent puncture and tear of vehicles and armoured suits, Perhaps we can even use the fabled shear thickening of Custard to do this. Then we can use the actual custard to contain the explosion in a custard factory above.
Dear FTA; please let me have a ‘pop’ at the military mind!
You might enjoy a short section from a description of a ‘Charge’ Hearing c 1959! that a sergeant in the Rifle Brigade cadets (an individual well known to me!) was required to attend!
The Cadet Corps of the Royal Masonic school was affiliated to the Rifle Brigade. That odd-ball part of
the army, founded and first active during the Peninsular wars in Spain and Portugal fighting Napoleon
Bonaparte. The Rifle Brigade. A group of specially selected soldiers, adept at living off the land and
being the eyes and ears of the commanders, and excellent shots. The 95th of Foot. Watchers of Sean
Bean as Sharpe look closely into your memories here to get the idea.
I had to participate in the Corps. I learnt the basics as a ‘squit’, a first year cadet, of the craft of
rifleman. Each year as I progressed up the school I learned more. I was taught how to read an
ordnance survey map, use a prismatic compass, camouflage my helmet and my position, load my rifle
with blanks and shoot it and polish my ‘brasses’, the buckles on my belt and anklets.
I had to press my uniform, with the three creases, spaced at three, six and nine inches at the back, and
have arrow sharp creases in the battle-dress trousers at the front: achieved by soap on the inside and a
night being slept upon in bed under the mattress. I had to Blanco my belt and anklets, salute when and
where necessary and march in step, and in time as part of our drill. I also had to know how to slow
march. That particular stately movement that once mastered is never forgotten. And march in the quick
time of the Rifle Brigade, one-hundred and eighty paces to the minute. Its soldiers and we cadets,
looking as we raced around the parade ground nearly twice as fast as ‘ordinary’ soldiers, as if we had
corks stuffed in a particular place. I was taught how to shoot with real ammunition. Rifle, Bren, Sten,
and to be part of the team to fire a mortar. I threw a grenade, once. Happily it was a dummy! When we
went to camp and on exercises once a year I was one of the squad. Gradually as I grew older promoted
from rifleman to corporal to sergeant. Led sometimes, merely managed and administered on others,
even just told what to do by the worst of my seniors. But all was stored away. All was retained.
****
It’s 1959. I’m marching from the School to Bushey railway station to attend annual Cadet camp. The
school, my home for most of the year and for many years, was almost behind me and my adult life and
career in front. But not quite yet. The army moves in a mysterious way its wonders to perform. It is
slow and ponderous and for the former task of policing and running and occasionally fighting small
wars to retain the Empire perhaps suitable. But not effective for the new society and the Cold War and
the growing threat of terrorism and the social unrest of the Sixties and later.
The camp was well set. Lines of tents, for sleeping. Larger tents for the several messes and classes:
and the whole of Salisbury Plain for exercises. And close by, the ranges for rifle, for Bren, for Sten, for
the mortar platoon, for all the elements that made up the modern, or at least the Sixties’ fighting force.
There were mess-tents and stores containing the whole raft of military materials. Flakes, corn: flakes,
soap: flakes, chocolate: flakes, snow! That is a joke, just in case you hadn’t spotted it, somewhat like
the RAF’s “Hangers(coat) and Hangers(aircraft)” that have part-numbers next to each other in the
regulations. I did not know what a part number was then. I do now
I went along with all of this, for I had little choice. But with my tongue firmly in the cheek and fingers
crossed to prove that I did not actually mean what I was required to say.
‘Answer for your nights in bed, correct or incorrect.’ Yes, that was the question actually asked and
which had to be replied to by each of the cadets who formed the new guard coming on duty. Followed
by ‘Old guard, present arms, New Guard, order arms. Stand at Ease, stand easy’.
The formality and ritual that once applied and demanded, makes control by the few of the many so
easy. So does the army, any army regardless of the colour of its uniforms or the nature of its political
masters, teach its foot-soldiers to do the simplest things by the most difficult method.
I wondered how many of the fathers of my contemporaries at school had died unnecessarily. Not like
mine, killed by our side, but blindly following orders and systems and procedures and the ways of an
Army or an Air-force or a Navy as they must. Even if all cried out to be challenged. If you are gaining
the impression that my views on many aspects of military matters were jaundiced, you would be right!
That last year at Corps camp, to show my individuality, I had my squad build a sentry box to my
design. Not to the pattern of those outside Buckingham Palace but simply to keep the rain off the
young guards in my platoon. A collection of ground-sheets laced together and anchored by sand-bags
borrowed from somewhere and set upon a wooden frame, probably liberated from the officers’ mess
tent. Practical application of the well tried methods of the Rifle Brigade throughout history to ‘live-off-
the-land’. As visiting dignitaries to the camp passed by, my young guards would salute and then stand
at ease. That’s what it said in the manual and so that was what happened. But at least they stayed dry.
“Sergeant Johnson to report to Colonel Harman at 14:00.” There was the instruction in daily orders.
I walked to Battalion HQ after lunch. There was a gathering of several officers and the RSM.
That’s another of those TLAs. It means Regimental Sergeant Major
“Did you send this note, Sergeant Johnson?” The colonel looked straight at me.
I was standing as close to ‘attention’, as required and taught by the Army, as my mind would allow.
Standing, looking directly ahead at the top of the colonel’s head and, as he looked up, at his eyes. They
were steel hard, with just a hint of the ‘schadenfreude’ warped joy- pleasure at other’s misfortune and
particularly misfortune I could initiate – that is so important for membership of the Officer class. I
learnt later that the same applies to many poor managers in companies and other organisations.
I paused before I replied, “Yes, of course.”
The colonel’s eyes flickered, his stare became harder for a second, his brow raised slightly as though
to say, “Haven’t you forgotten something?” I looked at him and then snatched a glance across at the
RSM. He was standing to attention, looking intently ahead, the cane under his arm in the prescribed
manner and the ‘patch’ of gold braid that signified his rank proudly showing. Timing would be the key.
I paused for a few more seconds and then released a “sir” through tightened lips, which I hoped would
show my contempt. After all, this was the man who had taught me chemistry (poorly!) who laughed
and joked with the VIth form, “you boys will not know about alcohol, so my saying that this material
changes colour to wine-red will mean nothing to you!”
The same man who supervised our puny attempts to titrate and analyse the chemicals in the smelling
bottles that lined the benches in the laboratory. This same man was now sitting in front of me wearing
a khaki uniform the same colour as mine with the pips that denoted his rank, gleaming on his
epaulettes. He was the colonel, I was just a sergeant. Why was I not in awe of him?
“And you are on a charge!”
With my little eye
13
“Yes” and then, after the appropriate pause, “sir.”
The colonel’s desk was clear, apart from a single piece of paper and a copy of King’s Regulations, its
ochre yellow cover and the black lettering with the Crest and Coat of Arms of the Monarch contrasting
sharply. I could just make out the motif “Honi soit qui mal y pense” and recalled my grandmother’s
translation. “To him who evil thinks, let it be.” It was turned, presumably to satisfy some other
regulation, possibly contained in an amendment to its very being, so that it faced the victim. Me.
I wanted to say. “You stupid buggers, the King’s been dead for seven years, we have a Queen now,
Elizabeth, the Second, by the grace of God, etc, hasn’t the army realised yet? Why not Queen’s
Regulations? Surely by now you could have printed some?” But I kept silent. If I had learned nothing
else from the Corps, it was that the sound of silence could be as effective as any comment. I restrained
myself from bursting into laughter, but a sharp glance from the RSM steadied me. Good old RSM
Corbals, “Corps Balls” as he was nicknamed. Like many of the masters in the staff, but perhaps more
human than most, he was a father figure in a school full of boys, who had lost their own.
The colonel looked around the room then back at me.
“Sergeant Johnson, you are a Head of House, in the VIth form, a School Prefect, in the First XV, you
have just taken your A levels, and are about to go on to University; you have everything going for you:
and you send this!” The colonel motioned to the piece of paper, the evidence of my misdemeanour, on
the desk.
“Go to hell and take your note with you.” The colonel had a questioning rise in his voice as he read
out the words.
“Did you send this to CSM Farmer?”
“I already said so.” Up went the eyebrows again and the RSM looked across with a pleading glance.
The “sir” crept out.
“Why?”
I paused, trying to compose an answer. Trying to place in a few words the situation I was exposed to,
trying to contain in a short phrase the anger and annoyance that had prompted, indeed demanded, that I
make a stand.
Did this express my anger at the “them and us” which had characterised the celebrations, the year
before, of the Masonic School Corps’ 100th Birthday? When the school had become an armed military
camp for a week, with helicopters disgorging generals and MPs – military policemen – and most
academic classes and sport abandoned. Officers with ‘scrambled egg’ all over their hats and shoulders
and uniforms had appeared, as if by magic, to walk up and down the lines of boys, paraded like so
many martinets. How did I explain my anger as a weedy voice, that of a Marquis no less, the
Honorary Colonel had “called the battalion to attention”, sounding like a three year old. How did I
explain my mirth as this marquis told one of my friends of his hatred and fright as a boy himself of the
‘earth bogs’ at Harrow School. How did I express my contempt and concern for the weak-chinned
ADCs, (there’s another TLA, Aides-de-Camps) who had sat telling my friends who were under-
officers “it’s no matter if the Genewal doesn’t tell me how many ‘A’ bombs we have, because I know
alweady.” Not only was their pronunciation suspect, these were men among boys and boys or at least
children in their thought patterns amongst men. They had not, when they became men, ‘put away
childish things’, but revelled in them still.
I looked directly into Harman’s eyes. “No reason, sir: it just seemed like a good idea at the time.”
With my little eye
14
Harman looked at me. He saw just a hint of a smile and certainly no suggestion of the subservience
that was a necessary and essential route to the top of the pyramid. That hierarchy of power and control
and position in any formal group, which he represented.
“I’m…..” he paused, his eyes flicking across to the CSM who had received my note, who was intent on
a career in the Army and hoping to attend Officer training, at Sandhurst no less. Harman had surely
known there would be trouble when this boy, my junior in the School and in age, had been promoted
to be in command of my house platoon. Perhaps he did it on purpose?
“I’m going to ignore this, to throw it away; to believe that such a thing never occurred, but…”
Harman paused again. He wanted to issue a warning, to punish me. Then he paused again, wondering.
The Ministry and Brigade had encouraged him and the adjutant to keep their eyes open. The letter to
the Headmaster had confirmed their interest. It talked about the qualities required ‘for an Officer in the
Services, to be a leader, to be an individualist but able to operate as part of a team.’ The staff room
discussion that followed had considered several boys, even thought Harman had recognised that
Johnson had not been on his list of those suitable to be officers. And there was another need as well.
For those who were not necessarily the star performer, indeed, preferably not.’ Though…. “special
duties, special character, special work? See if any fit; keep your eyes open. They’re all in the right
situation. No proper family, no real money, no position, no links to the great and good: but patriotic,
spirited, bright. They should be, because it’s probably all they have to cling to after ten years at a
charity public school.”
Harman looked at the wall, staring into space, then back at me. ‘Could Johnson become one of these?
Could he be trained to be one?’ he thought? Impossible. Johnson had bucked the system, had stepped
out of line and out of control, even if only for a single moment. Suppose he does it again, what then?
But, perhaps this is the key, the very essence of the type that he should recommend. Not the star, not
the mixer, not the gregarious joiner-in. But the loner who wanted to be different, wanted to avoid the
herd, needed to plough his own furrow.’ To place himself regularly as opposed to any regulations.
Against his better judgement, Harman screwed the paper up into a ball and threw it into the bin.
“Dismiss.”
“ ‘Ats, on. Salute, left turn, left, right, left…” The RSM shouted the commands. The system took over
again but a seed had been sown and it would grow.