Researchers from the University of Coimbra in Portugal are developing technology to detect mines and other explosive devices as part of a European Union (EU) project involving 26 partners, the university said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
The researchers in Coimbra, 175 km north of capital city of Lisbon, are already testing an adapted de-mining robot provided to the university by Canadian company Clearpath Robotics, following an international competition to seek out the best 10 entries out 150 submissions.
The robot was adapted with “a robotic arm that makes it possible to sweep the ground with mine detection sensors, such as metal detectors and ground-penetration radars,” said the team’s coordinator Lino Marques.
To make the robot more autonomous, the team “added a number of different sensors such as artificial vision cameras and laser sensors to measure distance, as well as artificial intelligence software, which makes it possible to understand the information from those sensors and to make decisions about the de-mining task, without human intervention,” Marques said.
There are an estimated 110 million land mines in over 70 countries across the world, according to Coimbra University, and developing autonomous robotic de-mining equipment is expected to save thousands of lives every year.
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