Clearing Hidden Killers:
Technology to the Rescue of Humanitarian Demining?

A. Walter Dorn[1], Draft of 11 June 2015

Humanitarian demining cries out for technological innovation. Deminers and local civilians are dying and loosing limbs because advanced detection and excavation devices are not available.[2] Millions of mines remain hidden in the ground, waiting to fulfill their deadly function or to be removed safely. To be sure, some research and development has been initiated since the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban (the APM Convention or Ottawa Treaty) but these projects have mostly been unworkable, underfunded or unexploited. Still, the question remains: why are we still using World War II technologies, i.e., primitive hand-held metal detectors and bayonet-style tools, to find and remove landmines when it should be possible for modern machines to do the work or, at least, to actively assist the deminers?[3] The possibilities need to be explored.....

[The full article is being submitted for publication.]

[1] Professor of Defence Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada and the Canadian Forces College, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. This report benefitted greatly from communications with Andy Smith, a mine-action expert with much practical experience. His information and insight is most gratefully acknowledged. Any errors remain the responsibility of the author.

[2] Thousands of people still die every year because of uncleared landmines. (United Nations, “Demining,” www.un.org/en/globalissues/demining; Landmine Report 2013). For deminers, prodding by hand is still the standard technique to use once a mine is detected by a metal detector. But “prodding is the most dangerous method there could be when looking for a device that is initiated by pressing on the top. Prodding cannot reach to a real depth below 4 inches, so is also dangerous for the civilians who will use the land later because mines will be left behind.” Email from Andy Smith, 21 May 2015. See Smith’s website: www.nolandmines.com. His data analysis (Journal of ERW and Mine Action, 15.2 (Summer 2011)) shows that between 2005–2010, “58% of missing mine accidents were missed while using a metal-detector.” For standard demining methods, see especially the Generic SOPs.

[3] Since World War 2, the military has had metal detectors, flails, rollers, and excavators for mine field breaching. These techniques could and should be improved upon for humanitarian demining, where the confidence of removal has to be much higher (99.6-99.9% is a commonly cited standard). Håvard Bach, formerly with Norwegian Peoples Aid (NPA), has offer a rough estimate of the “probability of detection” of mines by rollers as 10-40% and by flails and tillers as 40-80%. This published result was arrived at “by assessing past tests, trials and empirical experience by NPA and other organizations.” Results will depend on ground conditions and the age of the mines but these numbers do show the tremendous problems of traditional military methods. They are far from satisfactory for humanitarian demining.