drone
Drone most commonly refers to:
* Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg
* Unmanned aerial vehicle
* Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft
* Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone
Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...
for
demining
Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing land mines from an area. In military operations, the object is to rapidly clear a path through a minefield, and this is often done with devices such as mine plows and blast waves. By cont ...
, led by Afghanistan-born Massoud Hassani. The drone is designed to map an area for
land mine
A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...
s, detect the mines, and then detonate them remotely. It has been field-tested with the Dutch Ministry of Defence. The use of a drone is safer and less expensive than typical methods for mine removal, which endanger trained mine disposal experts and dogs. The Mine Kafon Foundation, established by Hassani in 2013, is based in
Eindhoven
Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022, He and his brother, Mahmud, in fear of the landmines, took a special path to school. Massoud says, that knowing that there are buried landmines "becomes like a mental disorder... The fear is on your mind all the time." As children, the boys made wind-driven toys to play with around the
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into #Districts, 22 municipal dist ...
deserts, but they would get stuck in the middle of minefields.
His mother arranged for smugglers to get him out of the country when he was 14 years of age. The Hassani family settled in the Netherlands. Massoud studied
Industrial Design
Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advance of the manufactu ...
at
Design Academy Eindhoven
Design Academy Eindhoven is an interdisciplinary educational institute for art, architecture and design in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The work of its faculty and alumni have brought it international recognition, and is widely regarded as one of the ...
, and inspired by homemade wind-powered toys he made during his childhood, he and his brother created the Mine Kafon wind-powered landmine machine—Kafon means "explode" in
Dari
Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī ...
. The machine, which looks like a giant dandelion puff ball that rolls across areas of land and detonates landmines, was created for his 2011 graduation project. Made of bamboo, iron, and plastic, the design that was inspired by a starburst was a finalist in London's Design Museum's 2012 Design of the Year Award. Called a visual poem by the ''New York Times'', it was exhibited in 2013 at the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and the following year at "The Fab Mind: Hints of the Future in a Shifting World" design exhibition as one of the "socially and politically engaged designs".
The concept for demining using the dandelion-shaped machine works in theory, particularly in open desert areas where the wind blows freely, but it could cause more problems—in terms of retrieval and maintenance—once it was damaged in the middle of a minefield, says Henk van der Slik of the Dutch Explosive Ordnance Disposal organization. While it is not an effective tool for demining, it could be used to identify potential areas where mines were placed.
Landmines worldwide
There are about 100 million buried landmines in 60 countries. The
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
states that there are 20,000 individuals—mostly the elderly, women, and children— that are maimed by landmines annually. According to ''Ingenieur'', civilians make up the largest portion of victims of landmines, at an estimate of 79% of the total victims. The military are estimated to be 18% of the victims, and professional mine sweepers are 3% of the victims.
Typically, mines are removed using mine disposal experts, dogs, and wheeled vehicles, which is dangerous. Further, the mines become more unstable over time. It costs between $300–1,000 to remove each mine, according to the
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
. It is also a lengthy process. There were 171,000 American and Russian mines laid in Mozambique during their revolution, which have been said to have killed up to 15,000 people, according to
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...
. It took 22 years to clear the mines from the country. The effort was completed in 2015.
The project
Subsequently, the project rapidly gained media-interest. In 2012, Massoud and his brother Mahmud organised a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the development of the Mine Kafon tumbleweed mine detonator ball. The project raised funds on the
crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by cro ...
site
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
with their goal set at £100,000 and receiving £119,456. After the successful fundraising campaign, Massoud established the Mine Kafon Foundation, a research and development organization, in 2013 in
Eindhoven
Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,Dutch Ministry of Defence. They also
crowd-sourced
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
globally for designers and engineers to collaborate on the project. The team, led by Massoud, currently optimises the Mine Kafon to safely and efficiently operate across all landmine contaminated terrains.
The drone
The unmanned airborne de-mining system uses a three step process to autonomously map, detect and detonate land mines. It flies above potentially dangerous areas, generating a 3D map using its 3D camera,
GPS
The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...
, and a computer. It then uses a
metal detector
A metal detector is an instrument that detects the nearby presence of metal. Metal detectors are useful for finding metal objects on the surface, underground, and under water. The unit itself, consist of a control box, and an adjustable shaft, ...
that hovers close above the ground using sensors and a retractable arm keep to pinpoint and
geotag
Geotagging, or GeoTagging, is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data u ...
the location of mines. The drone can then place a detonator above the mines using its robotic gripping arm, before retreating to a safe distance and detonating the mine. The firm claims its drone is safer, 20 times faster and up to 200 times cheaper than current technologies and might clear mines globally in 10 years. Some of the challenges are that it is difficult to rely on GPS for precise locations and it is difficult to identify mines that have been buried for decades.
In terms of the mechanics, the goal now is to optimize the drone and create base stations. The team will explore using external antennas to triangulate locations, to improve the results of using GPS alone. In addition, the plan is to train pilots to use the drone and carry out tests in different countries. Another Kickstarter campaign was established in July 2016 to help fund these efforts with the goal set at €70,000 and receiving over €100,000 above it (€177,456).