scientists in the The United States has developed technology that can detect landmines from afar and with high accuracy, which could reduce the risk of removing mines from current and former conflict zones. Known as a laser multibeam differential interferometry sensor, or Lambdis, the technology works by projecting lasers onto the ground to reveal suspicious threats.
Currently there are more than 110 million landmines buried around the world, and by 2023, mines will kill or injure 5,700 peopleand civilians accounted for 84 percent of the victims, half of whom were children. According to the United Nations, landmines threaten lives in more than 70 countries.
A mine can be made for as little as $3, but removal can cost up to $1,000. Landmine removal typically relies on humans finding them with portable metal detectors, which is dangerous, time-consuming, and almost ineffective if searching for mines made of plastic.
In response, American researchers developed technology to detect landmines indirectly that could detect both metal and plastic mines. Lambdis works by sending a vibration to the ground and at the same time scanning the area with a laser beam. Materials in the ground will vibrate at different frequencies, as will the ground itself, and the laser picks up these differences when it reflects back to its emitter. The Lambdis system then generates an image that visualizes these vibrations and their locations in different colors, creating a map of things buried in the ground.
The technology was developed by a team led by Vyacheslav Aranchuk, a laser detection specialist at the University of Mississippi. Importantly, it can detect mines from a distance and can be mounted on a moving vehicle to help scan large areas.
“The number of landmines will continue to increase as long as conflicts continue. “This technology will be useful not only for military use in ongoing conflicts, but also for humanitarian efforts once the conflicts have ended,” Aranchuk says.
Researchers continue to develop the system. An earlier version of Lambdis emitted 30 laser beams in a line, but the latest version emits rays in a 34 x 23 array, allowing it to visualize vibrations over a wider area.
Conventional metal detectors used for mine clearance react to any metal object, so it is not uncommon for them to mistakenly detect objects other than landmines. And an alternative demining solution, underground radar, which emits high-frequency electromagnetic waves into the ground, has the disadvantage of being easily affected by ground conditions. Lambdis, in comparison, produces fewer false positives.
According to the research team, the technology can be used not only for the detection of landmines, but also to evaluate civil engineering structures such as bridges due to structural integrity or damage. In the future it could be used to analyze products in the automotive and aerospace industries, or even in medical imaging. Next, the team plans to evaluate Lambdis’ performance in different soil conditions and in searching for other types of buried objects.
This story originally appeared on Japan wired and has been translated from Japanese.