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Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

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Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#41

Post by [deleted] »

michaelgrafl wrote: post #27
_djo_ wrote: post #13

Sadly, demining is not this simple or easy. Mine rollers and mine flails like this have been tried and tested since WWI but none have proven completely effective in finding and clearing mines. This is partially because they only work well on totally flat terrain and rapidly lose effectiveness in rougher terrain where a large number of mines are typically buried. In practice, solutions like this achieve only 50-60% ef…

That's an informative posting. But does it hurt to get about half the landmines by cheap means and do the rest with more thorough methods? That's not a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely interested.

[deleted]

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#42

Post by jontas »

marcamillion wrote: post #22
chad_oliver wrote: post #10

This is a great solution, but it seems like it is designed to follow a random path (that is, where the wind blows). How do you prevent this from creating a false sense of security, when in fact there are areas of the desert which have not been tested? I remember when I was little I built a small platform high up in a tree. My father refused to let me put a rail around it, because the sort of rail I could build would…

One alternative to this is to just create lanes with rope. i.e. you drive a stake in the ground on either side of the field (if that's even possible) and just create a lane where each of these rollers roll through. It won't work in every single landmine, but it can provide a 'grid' within which you know what has been cleared and what has not.

When they're handing out jobs, I sure hope I'm not the one assigned to drive these stakes and run the ropes through the minefields :)

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#43

Post by primitur »

_djo_ wrote: post #13

Sadly, demining is not this simple or easy. Mine rollers and mine flails like this have been tried and tested since WWI but none have proven completely effective in finding and clearing mines. This is partially because they only work well on totally flat terrain and rapidly lose effectiveness in rougher terrain where a large number of mines are typically buried. In practice, solutions like this achieve only 50-60% ef…

Surprise, surprise .. 'authorities' are 'doing it better'.

Well, this tech is not for the authorities. Its for children to use to help clear the danger away from their villages. Its a tech that anyone can apply, not just those with access industrialized manufacturing facilities and the 'mine-clearing economy'.

99% clearance rate? I think most villages would be happy with being able to clear a safe path for their kids to walk on, at any rate. This cheap, useful, easy to apply technology allows that to occur. Make 100 of them, let them loose for a few weeks, and suddenly 99% seems a lot more doable with this method than any other - especially for the resource-lacking Afghani villages who are left with the war liability that the imperial, authoritarian states, have given them ..

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#44

Post by humbledrone »

anthonyb wrote: post #37
robotresearcher wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better sheep than the children who get blown up in the absence of sheep.

Only very slightly. Also, it suffers from the same problem as the Mine Kafon, in that it's a more-or-less random walk and you won't know whether the whole area is cleared.

> Only very slightly.

Just to be clear, are you saying that it is only very slightly better for a sheep, rather than a human child, to be maimed by a land mine? That seems to be what you wrote, but I'm having a very difficult time reconciling your world view with my own, so I'm hoping that I am somehow misunderstanding.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#45

Post by primitur »

cflee wrote: post #40
_djo_ wrote: post #13

Sadly, demining is not this simple or easy. Mine rollers and mine flails like this have been tried and tested since WWI but none have proven completely effective in finding and clearing mines. This is partially because they only work well on totally flat terrain and rapidly lose effectiveness in rougher terrain where a large number of mines are typically buried. In practice, solutions like this achieve only 50-60% ef…

Turns out that the Dutch armed forces agree[1] that it's not so easy either: "The Mine Kafon has just been tested by the Dutch Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, which has concluded that it is not suitable for mine clearance (which requires a more systematic approach), but at $50 each could be used as a cheap and safe way to identify dangerous areas that need demining." [1] http://australia.icbl.org/index_htm_files/Ma…

Not suitable - for military purposes. DEODU is a military organization, and any conclusions it makes must be viewed in that light. Mine-clearing is a war tool as much as it is a peace tool.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#46

Post by _djo_ »

michaelgrafl wrote: post #27
_djo_ wrote: post #13

Sadly, demining is not this simple or easy. Mine rollers and mine flails like this have been tried and tested since WWI but none have proven completely effective in finding and clearing mines. This is partially because they only work well on totally flat terrain and rapidly lose effectiveness in rougher terrain where a large number of mines are typically buried. In practice, solutions like this achieve only 50-60% ef…

That's an informative posting. But does it hurt to get about half the landmines by cheap means and do the rest with more thorough methods? That's not a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely interested.

That's not a bad question. Thing is the organisations that perform thorough civilian demining already start off with cheaper methods such as mine rollers to get some of the mines, and the ones they use are arguably cheaper to use because they're strong enough to require fewer replacement parts. For instance Mechem has a CASSPIR armoured vehicle with steel wheels that'll happily trundle over anti-personnel mines all day without needing repairs (though anti-tank mines necessitate a wheel change).

And as another poster (codebeaker) pointed out, it's also far worse for demining teams to have random shrapnel spread over a minefield, as it makes the job of identifying mines much more difficult. That's one of the reasons why demining teams use systems that are less likely to break and leave pieces on the minefield.

So it's unlikely that this product will save any money.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#47

Post by codebeaker »

I believe that studies (which I cannot find citations for now) determined that this device makes the sutation worse, as it scatters metalic debris over a wider area, and that human mine clearance teams have to work an order of magnitude harder, cleaning up tiny bits of shrapnel. Before an area can be marked clear, it has to be devoid of all unidentified metalic shards, and of course, all mines of other materials. As a result, it was the determination of more than one agency that this device makes things worse.

With that said, props to the designer for working on a solution to a difficult problem, but perhaps more domain knowledge would have lead him to a more suitable solution

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#48

Post by reitzensteinm »

primitur wrote: post #45
cflee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out that the Dutch armed forces agree[1] that it's not so easy either: "The Mine Kafon has just been tested by the Dutch Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, which has concluded that it is not suitable for mine clearance (which requires a more systematic approach), but at $50 each could be used as a cheap and safe way to identify dangerous areas that need demining." [1] http://australia.icbl.org/index_htm_files/Ma…

Not suitable - for military purposes. DEODU is a military organization, and any conclusions it makes must be viewed in that light. Mine-clearing is a war tool as much as it is a peace tool.

You're getting downvoted because civilian requirements are higher than military.

If you manage to clear a field such that there is a single mine in it, it will likely become safer to march through than avoid - there are plenty of other things that can kill you, and they must be triaged in war time.

However, if you take that same field after the war is over and put a farmer on it, it's basically a matter of time until he steps on it. His only chance is that an animal blows it up, or the mine is defective.

Therefore, if it's not suitable for military clearing, it is even less suitable for civilian purposes (except for figuring out what needs to be cleared, as they say).

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#49

Post by _djo_ »

Vivtek wrote: post #29
_djo_ wrote: post #13

Sadly, demining is not this simple or easy. Mine rollers and mine flails like this have been tried and tested since WWI but none have proven completely effective in finding and clearing mines. This is partially because they only work well on totally flat terrain and rapidly lose effectiveness in rougher terrain where a large number of mines are typically buried. In practice, solutions like this achieve only 50-60% ef…

The difference is this costs 40 € and can clear a couple of mines for that money. Afghanistan is not exactly rolling in cash, so any cheap improvement is a valuable addition to the toolbox - it provides a way for poor communities to do something while they're waiting for America to donate enough money to clean up their mess. My guess is that demining NGOs will be using something like this soon enough if it proves eff…

Demining organisations already use mine rollers in situations where they make sense. As I said, they use a layered approach, with mine-rollers, vehicles, sniffer dogs, etc used as the circumstances require it.

The problem with communities doing it themselves is it'll give them a false sense of security about the safety of known minefields. This could potentially increase the number of mine-related injuries because far more people will attempt to live in or traverse known minefields which they wrongly believe to have been cleared yet which still contain roughly half of the original mines.

Re: Low-cost Solution to Clearing Afghan Landmines

#50

Post by dagw »

japhyr wrote: post #11
ricg wrote: post #4

Combine them with a GPS sensor (accurate enough?) and track the area that they've covered on a map.

We do this in search and rescue work. It seems like a really good idea. I wonder if there is a way to make a more cylindrical version of this, which might follow a more predictable and controlled path through a minefield.

With S&R being off by a meters or two generally isn't a problem. With landmines drawing the 'safe' line one meter too far to the left can be deadly.
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