The key challenge to mine detection technology lies in achieving a high rate of mine detection while maintaining a low false alarm rate.
The autonomous mine detection system (shown in Figure 4) was used to acquire large collections of GPR data from two geographically distinct test sites in the eastern U.S. with natural soil.
Sischy, however, rejoices in the struggle; she is like someone walking through a minefield who has taken a course in mine detection.
She led a team in mine detection exercises, but to do so she needed to gain real-world experience.
For another, it is probably the only agency ever to offer a $40,000 prize for a balloon hunt, a contest that was inspired by Regina Dugan, a 47-year-old expert in mine detection, who took over last summer as its director.
"Antipersonnel mines can have many shapes," said Dimitri M. Donskoy, an associate professor at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., who has developed one of the new mine detection systems.
IT has been a long voyage through time and space for Dimitri Donskoy, from his youth in the former Soviet Union, fascinated by the vibrations of a guitar string, to his research here into land mine detection systems for the Pentagon.
In the rare event that one of the animals repeatedly proves itself unable to master the techniques of mine detection, it is withdrawn from training but kept on as a playmate for its more successful peers.
Financed by a $770,000 grant from the Army Research Office, his land mine detection work has incalculable humanitarian value.
Figure 4 NIITEK autonomous mine detection system.
