Global threat of landmines and IED that kill thousands of people every year require new technologies for detection

Landmines are a global threat. Several countries suffer from the existence of millions of buried landmines in their territories. These landmines have indefinite life, and may still cause horrific personal injuries and economic dislocation for decades after a war has finished. Landmines came into widespread use in the Second World War, where they were designed to injure/maim rather than to kill, with a view to stressing the medical resource of the enemy. Many were left buried in the ground in regions of conflict long after the fighting had ended, causing them to be inadvertently detonated by civilians stepping on them.

 

IED’s have become an extremely significant and dangerous force protection issue in the wake of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Insurgents and terrorists are using a variety of asymmetric techniques to attack militarily superior coalition forces with military ordnance components combined with commercial off the shelf explosives, electronics, and digital subsystems.

 

Landmines, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and other homemade bombs struck 6,461 people worldwide in 2015, killing at least 1,672, according to a report by the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines and Cluster Munition Coalition. Survivors are often left with devastating injuries. In a study published in BMJ Open, 70 percent of people hit by IEDS in Afghanistan required multiple amputations. According to the UN Mine Action Service, landmines kill 15,000–20,000 people every year (mostly children) and maim countless more across 78 countries.

 

There have been several reports of landmines found on the Myanmar-Bangladeshi border in Rakhine State. But after a high profile campaign, 162 countries signed the 1997 Ottawa Treaty pledging to stop their production and use. The use of landmines is illegal under the international Mine Ban Treaty, but Myanmar is one of 32 countries, including the US and China, that have yet to ratify the treaty. Bangladesh, however, has signed the treaty.

 

Myanmar military spokesperson Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun has said the Arakan Army (AA) presents a major threat because the ethnic armed group now uses modern technologies in the violent conflict in Rakhine State. “Bombings can be carried out via mobile phones and walkie-talkies, so we need to pay greater attention to security,” said Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun. He made the comments in response to a recent report by Indian intelligence agencies that the AA is using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies to trigger landmines targeting the Myanmar army. “We have technology that can counter [AA] attacks but technology can’t guarantee 100 percent security. Terrorists will study how defensive technologies are used and attack the places that are technically weak and less protected,” said Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun.

 

The demining has two contexts, the military and the humanitarian. The main aim of the military is cleaning the path where the soldiers are going to walk through. Instead the humanitarian must clear the zone of mines to ensure the life of every member of the community who lives close to the danger region. “There are literally millions of anti-personnel mines in the ground in places where people need to grow food, or need to walk to the nearest well, or simply go about their daily business – shelter under a tree from the Sun,” explains Bill Lionheart, a mathematician at the University of Manchester in the UK.

 

Demining efforts cost US 300–1000 USD per mine, and, for every 5000 mines cleared, one person is killed and two are injured. Thus, clearing post-combat regions of landmines has proven to be a difficult, risky, dangerous and expensive task with enormous social implications for civilians.

 

Many technologies and techniques have been employed in detection of landmines. Each method has its advantages and inconveniences. One of the earlier and most used methods is the metal detector. Due to electrical induction phenomena, this type of detectors is able to detect the objects that contains metal under the soil. Although this technique is cheap, it has several drawbacks: it detects all metals, either landmines or inert metals so it has very high false alarm rate; new landmines contains less metals so they are harder to be detected.

 

 

Many technologies are used to  IED Neutralization and Detection (INDET) for ground forces protection against remotely controlled improvised explosive devices (IED) and related insurgent/terrorist explosive threats. Robotic vehicles and drones are also being increasingly employed for mind detection and clearing, to reduce the risk to the personnel.