Detection and removal of antipersonnel landmines in infested fields is an important worldwide problem. Around 100 million landmines have been deployed over the last two decades, and demining will take several more decades, even if no more mines were deployed in future. A high mine-clearance rate can only be accomplished by using new technologies such as improved sensors, efficient manipulators and mobile robots. This paper presents some basic ideas on the configuration and controller of a mobile system for detecting and locating antipersonnel landmines in an efficient and effective way. The whole system has been configured to work in a semi-autonomous mode with a view also to robot mobility and energy efficiency. The paper outlines the main features of the overall system and focuses on some aspects of the controller.

This work has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology under Grant CICYT DPI2001-1595.

Peer reviewed