A unique joint venture between DERA and Sir Richard Branson's The Lightship Group (TLG), plans to exploit the best in military radar technology and airship design in locating deadly mined areas around the world.
What's more, this high-flying solution is not fazed by the challenges posed to standard radar systems in detecting wholly plastic mines.
Using an airship as a highly mobile radar platform gives the mine detection teams a capability to move quickly over possible mined areas, an aim of mine clearance charities for years. "This airship and radar combination represent a real breakthrough in mine clearance," said Sir Richard Branson. "I am delighted to have assisted in providing a valuable asset for the de-mining community which will contribute to liberating land at a much faster rate than currently possible."
"As a leading signatory to the Ottawa Treaty in 1997, the UK Government has agreed to support other nations in their efforts to rid the world of this deadly legacy" says Baroness Symons, Minister for Defence Procurement. "The development of Mineseeker is an example of government and industry working together to the benefit of men, women and children, living in areas where landmines remain such a dreadful threat".
According to the UN, there are at least 60 - 70 million landmines left in the world and some 25,000 people are maimed or killed annually (70 people daily). The Landmine Monitor also estimates that there are currently more than 250 million antipersonnel mines stored in the arsenals of at least 104 countries. UN records some 900,000 square kilometres lost to mined areas which is the equivalent to a useable space the size of France and Germany combined. With figures like these, the Mineseeker collaboration will represent a significant advance in the humanitarian de-mining effort. This airborne radar system will be able to accurately and quickly direct costly resources - so saving not only billions of pounds in money, but also essential time and lives.
Colonel Alistair McAslan of the International Centre for Humanitarian De-mining in Geneva is clear about needs to be done. "First, we need better equipment and procedures to identify, to map and to mark the outer edge of mined areas, as the early liberation of safe land provides hope and encouragement" he says. "Second, we need better equipment and procedures to conduct quality control of cleared land. An effective detection system, mounted on a low flying platform such as an airship, may offer the solution to both these challenges."
The first trials of the airship-borne radar system called Mineseeker took place in mid-January at a DERA site in Worcestershire, where TLG's A60+ Airship was fitted out with an innovative prototype radar system built by DERA. Early results are extremely promising with the system performing at least as well as previous ground based trials.
Currently, mined areas are identified in the first instance through post-conflict intelligence gathering from local hearsay and information given by the ex-warring factions. Inaccurate information leads to some 80% of areas being mis-diagnosed so that mined areas remain unreliably mapped, or worse, unidentified - risking lives and rendering potentially life sustaining farming land unusable. It is expected that the Mineseeker system will be able to uniquely map mined areas quickly and safely, covering ground at a rate equivalent to more than 100 square metres per second - which is many thousands of times faster than the average rate for a manual search.
The January trial was essentially the culmination of a feasibility study into the operation of a prototype Ultra-Wide Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (UWB SAR) from an airship for the detection of mined areas in a humanitarian role. Targets imaged by the experimental radar system were surface laid metal and plastic mines and mine-like targets of varying sizes. The smallest of these targets were only 10cm in diameter and entirely plastic which represents a significant advance over conventional airborne radar systems. Conventional Ground Penetrating Radar is an alternative Wide Band or Ultra Wide Band system but is limited to operations close to the ground - this constraint means that the user is close to the threat and that coverage rates are slow.
The next phase of the development would be to optimise the radar to meet the specific requirements of mined area detection in a humanitarian role. The science and technology involved is widely recognised as frontier breaking and particularly challenging. This is an ambitious programme that will take some twenty-four months to complete, but the resulting system will have unique capabilities and contribute a significant advance in ridding the world of these deadly legacies.
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Major Humanitarian De-Mining Role For DERA Joint Venture With Sir Richard Branson's Lightship Group
