PROJECT
FINDMINE
SITUATION
The humanitarian clearance of land mines is still a huge challenge:
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According to UN requirements at least 99.6% of all mines must be cleared up to a depth of 13 cm,
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There are different types and sizes of mines (metal, minimum metal, non-metal)
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Mines were placed in different environments (city, jungle, desert) regularly or irregularly and can be redistributed by erosion and surface movements.
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Mine detection is done manually, the deminer has to walk blindly into a field and rely on the statements of the local military and residents.
The foundation‘s goal is to develop technologies, for example a UAV-based sensor system that enables deminers to quickly get an overview of potential danger spots and thus excludes as many areas as possible in a short time. This should greatly reduce the time spent on site.
PROJECT
As a result of excellent research work over more than 7 years, in 2022, the project FindMine has developed to FindMine gGmbH, which is a small a non-profit limited company based in Illertissen, Germany. It continues to be funded by the Urs Endress Foundation and supported by Mine-ex and FSD. FindMine now aims to turn the research work into operational systems that will be useful in mine countermeasures, making an important contribution to preventing mine casualties.
Our mission is opening the way for new and disruptive technologies into mine action. These technologies will make the removal of hazards from past wars and conflicts cheaper, safer and more efficient.
SYSTEM APPROACH
The FindMine system is based on a UAV-carried ground penetrating synthetic aperture radar (GPSAR).
This system approach enables the detection of objects below the ground surface to a depth of 20 cm from a safe flight altitude of several meters above the ground without the need for a vehicle or person to enter the hazardous area. The system differs from camera-based UAV solutions in the visual or IR domain, which can detect buried objects only indirectly via random tracks on the surface. The key fields of action are localization accuracy, radar dynamic range, sensor synchronization and computationally intensive tomography-like data processing.
Official Paper - Project FindMine
(c) 2017, 2019
Veröffentlichungen im FindMine Projekt:
"A broadband UAV-based FMCW GPR and the infuence of vegetation"
> Burr, Ralf; et al.; ICMIM 04/2018; 2018
"Lightweight Broadband Antennas for UAV based GPR Sensors"
> Burr, Ralf; et al.; EuRAD 09/2018; 2018
"A Multicopter- based Method for Ground Penetrating Synthetic Aperture Radars"
> Schartel, Markus; et al.; IGARSS 2018; 2018
"Radar-Based Altitude over Ground Estimation of UAVs"
> Schartel, Markus; et al.; Gemic 03/2018; 2018
"UAV-Based Ground Penetrating Synthetic Aperture Radar"
> Schartel, Markus; et al.; ICMIM 04/2018; 2018
"Humanitarian Demining – UAV-Based Detection of Land Mines"
> Gotttwald, Reinhard; et al.; FIG Working Week 2017; 2017
"FindMine – UAV im humanitären Einsatz"
> Mayr, Werner; 178. DVW-Seminar; 2019
https://geodaesie.info/sr/uav-2019-geodaeten-erobern-den-luftraum/8337/1951
"Design of a broadband FMCW GPR for Mine Detection and the influence of vegetation"
> Burr, Ralf; et al.; GeMiC 2019; 2019
"A comparison of ground-based and airborne SAR systems for the detection of landmines, UXO and IEDs"
> Heinzel Andreas; Schartel M., et al.; SPIE2019; 2019
"Revisiting Boustrophedon Coverage Path Planning as a Generalized Traveling Salesman Problem"
> Bähnemann, Rik; et al.; FSR Conference; 2019
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.09224.pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u8CWYJ4HIaom0ELjjhVrPoykOUqNhiQG/view
"Airborne Tripwire Detection Using a Synthetic Aperture Radar"
> Schartel, Markus; et al.; IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters (GRSL); 2019
"Position Acquisition for a Multicopter-Based Synthetic Aperture Radar"
> Schartel, Markus; et al.; 2019 20th International
Radar Symposium (IRS); 2019
"UAV-based polarimetric synthetic aperture radar for mine detection"
> Burr, Ralf; et al.; IGARS2019; 2019
"An Experimental Study on Airborne Landmine Detection Using a Circular Synthetic Aperture Radar"
> Schartel, Markus; et al.; arXiv.org; 2020
COOPERATION WITH
