Humanitarian Demining

Citation

(2010), "Humanitarian Demining", Industrial Robot, Vol. 37 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2010.04937cae.001

Humanitarian Demining

Humanitarian Demining

Article Type: Book review From: Industrial Robot: An International Journal, Volume 37, Issue 3

Edited by Maki K. HabibI-Tech Education and PublishingVienna2008Price: Downloadable at no charge392 pp.ISBN: 978-3-902613-11-0Web site: www.sciyo.com/books/show/title/humanitarian_demining,

The book includes 16 chapters written by academic experts in humanitarian demining. It gives an overview of the research issues and solutions achieved in the areas of mine detection, demining technologies, and tools.

The framework presented in this book is very wide and covers the two main philosophies applied in this research field: the short- and medium/long-term approaches. The first approach looks for mechatronic low-cost tools designed involving users and considering the specific characteristics of the minefield environment (Chapters 2, 12, and 16), the second develops sophisticated sensor fusion algorithms in order to try to find robust and reliable solutions to the up-to-date unsolved mine detection problem (Chapters 3-8).

Some authors emphasize that current demining technology is slow, costly and sometimes not suitable for the mine affected countries, local people culture, and direct users. They try to make effective their research results proposing new simple cost-effective tele-operated and semi-autonomous demining mechatronic tools.

Some authors underline that current technology does not assure the detection of every single mine in the area, and that no single sensor can reach the needed high detection rate in all possible scenarios due to the high variety of the types of mines and the conditions in which mines can be found. They propose multisensorial systems and data fusion methods based on fuzzy, belief functions, and possibility theory.

The reader will find within the panorama of humanitarian demining curious approaches like the mine detection methods based on chemo-sensing insect/animal inspired localization strategies (Chapter 8 and 15), or the cable suspended searching platform (Chapter 12), or the non linear model of the soil-mine system (Chapter 5), or the co-user-designed modular mine removing power tiller used first to clear the area and then for agricultural purposes (Chapter 16).

The book presents practical and theoretical aspects of the humanitarian demining subject according to various multi-disciplinary approaches typical of each author. The reading of this book is recommended for both humanitarian demining education purposes and for researchers who are approaching the humanitarian demining problem.

Rezia MolfinoDIMEC – University of Genova, Genova, Italy