Military
- Trained military personnel and dog deminers are being killed every year.
- Explosive detecting dogs can be unreliable due to unpredictable habits from dog and/or environment
- Most advanced mine detection methods still rely on the use of a physical operator person, creating dangerous environment
Humanitarian Efforts
- Thousands of innocent civilians and children are killed by anti-personnel mines annually
- Conventional methods for mine detection, such as poking and metal detection, are unreliable and dangerous
- Some humanitarian groups lack the required resources to attain advanced mine detection technology, thus rely on old, dangerous, and inefficient mine detecting methods
Other Stakeholders:
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BREAKING DOWN THE PROBLEM
The most common methods of detecting anti-personnel mines today include the use of metal/GPR sensor devices, trained animals, or large military vehicles. However, the mentioned methods of detecting landmines mostly involve the use of a human operator (with or without an animal) constantly exposing his/her life to accidental detonation of a mine; contrastingly, the use of military tanks does not cause danger to any human operators, but it does create an unrepairable amount of damage to the soil/environment in which the mines are placed in, therefore making the environment useless for future construction, farming, etc. Additionally, there have also been a few attempts to develop robotic solutions for landmine detecting; the majority of proposed robotic solutions for landmine detecting, consists of either a 4-wheeled or tank like utility vehicle with some sort of metal detecting device mounted in the front of the vehicle.
Nonetheless, most of the attempted solutions to develop a mine detecting robot pertain their respective flaws. Some designs are too big/heavy and can unintentionally detonate anti-personnel mines if it is not detected. Other designs are too small and cannot effectively perform its required tasks in rough terrain, such as heavy vegetation and/or rocky conditions, which is where most landmines are located [6]. Lastly, the most common gap noticed throughout all designs, is the ability for the robot to effectively perform its task regardless of its operating environment. If there is a region of high vegetation or rocks, a standard 4-wheeled or tank like device is most likely incapable of maneuvering through such environment, assuming that the device/vehicle is not overly sized to the point of self-detonating an anti-personnel landmine. Additionally, most proposed solutions to developing such robotic system includes the use of a basic metal detecting device fixed onto the robot; when in actuality, military and humanitarian demining personnel tend to rely on highly advanced metal detecting/GPR sensor fused devices to help increases their accuracy and decrease false alarms during demining operations.
Thus, our proposed solution is to develop a low cost, low weight, and agile autonomous tank with four separate tracks. This design does not only increase the device's ability to perform effectively in rough terrain, but also has the potential of producing less pressure per track than the required amount of force needed to detonate an anti-personnel landmine (11lbs-35lbs) [5]. Moreover, our proposed solution will have an emphasis towards designing an adaptable mounting bracket for hand-held metal detectors to allow the operator to place any mine detecting device of their choice, within the robot's constraints. The autonomous abilities of the robot will be a behavior-based architecture that is based on layers with different levels of competence. The lowest layer is often in charge of avoiding obstacles, and upper layers contain other task-oriented behaviors. Typically, lower-level actions are given higher priority (to avoid obstacle is more important for the survival of the robot than to follow the defined path). The most top-level layer of a demining robot ought to be in charge of navigation. The robot is guided by the navigation layer along a predetermined path, ensuring coverage of a desired area. Through the use of the proper sensors, environmental restrictions should trigger lower-level behaviors that are in charge of avoiding obstacles and maintaining stability. It will be important to keep track of any deviations from the predetermined search path brought on by environmental factors. At the conclusion of the mission, the terrain's digital map should clearly indicate the areas that were searched and skipped, along with any mine targets that were discovered. [6]
Global System analysis
Global Need
As conveyed from the image to the left, the world is still experiencing an overwhelming amount of present and suspected territorial regions of anti-personnel landmines. If our proposed solution can at least help pave the way for more involvement from robotic manufacturers and research facilities to create advanced and large-scale robotic solutions to autonomous landmine detecting and extracting, this can greatly impact the world. Not only would this help prevent countless casualties of innocent civilians and children, but also assist in future construction and establishments on millions of acres of land where mines are currently presents and/or suspected.
Local Need
The project is aimed at humanitarian and military organizations focused on demining such as those mentioned earlier. These organizations can benefit from our project because they will be able to utilize technology that protects and prevents the death/injury of their deminers exposed in the mine fields. Our system would be compatible with various types of terrain, from flat to heavy vegetation, allowing our users to adapt to different environments of these mine fields. The civilians and children surrounding these mine infested fields would be directly affected by our project as they would now have the freedom to travel or change locations as needed for them without having to adjust their plans due to local mine fields.
