There are over 100 million land mines worldwide, and 10 people a day are killed or maimed by them. De-mining them the current way – with humans scouting for them – is dangerous and very slow.
But what if we could use drones to make the process 20 times faster, up to 200 times cheaper, and rid the world of abandoned minefields in 10 years?! That’s the idea behind Mine Kafon Drone the best ICT4D Kickstarter ever.
The Mine Kafon Drone flies over dangerous areas to map, detect and detonate landmines from a safe distance. The drone works autonomously equipped with three separate interchangeable robotic extensions: a camera, mine detection hardware, or a small grasper.
- First, the UAV uses the camera to map the area and mark dangerous obstacles that it needs to avoid.
- Next, the UAV uses the mine detector to locate mines.
- Finally, the UAV uses the grasper to place a small detonator on the mine, destroying it.
Massoud Hassani has already raised over $165,000 of his $77,464 goal, so his project will get funded. Still, don’t just sit there – back the Kickstarter now – to help him improve the drone, develop base stations, and test the drone in different environments.
Hi,
There is a lot of communication these days around this prototype, so well done for that.
Except that the arguments are fals (there are not 100 million landmines in the ground worldwide !), or not credible. Putting explosives on top of a burried mine does not make much sens… A professional deminer would never walk through a mine field cleared that way.
ICTworks should be careful about its credibility instead of copy-pasting and supporting information without a thorough review.
Keep up the good work otherwise.
Cheers
Colibri, where is the supporting information for your comments? No one has raised these issues in the Kickstarter comments, nor in the many articles on the drone. Could you share links to credible articles that say this is a bad idea? Thanks!