Project Abstract:

DEMAND is an answer to the most pressing requirements in the South Eastern Stability Pact Region caused through the threat of Anti-Personnel-Landmines (APL). DEMAND will improve state of the art technology to achieve better accuracy than traditional APL detection techniques currently used in the field for close in detection (i.e. metal detector and prodder) while considerably speed and decreasing false alarms. We will build a prototype composed of a simple trolley like platform with three advanced and enhanced state-of-the-art sensors, i.e. metal detector (MD), ground penetrating radar (GPR) and a biological vapour sensor (Biosensor) whose measurement results will be strengthened through beyond-state-of-the-art Data Fusion. The prototype performance will be evaluated in extended field tests in Kosovo. The project intends to develop a fully engineered detector and to commercialise the product through a joint venture.

Objectives:

The main objective of the DEMAND project is to help provide an answer to the most pressing requirements in the South Eastern Stability Pact region caused by the threat of Anti-Personnel Landmines (APL). DEMAND will show that an improvement in state of the art technology can achieve better accuracy than APL detection techniques currently used in the field for close in detection (i.e. metal detector and prodder), while considerably increasing speed and decreasing false alarms. We will build a prototype system composed of a simple trolley like platform with three enhanced-beyondstate-of-the-art sensors, i.e. Metal detector, Ground Penetrating Radar and a biological vapour sensor (Biosensor), whose measurement results will be strengthened through beyond-state-of-the-art data fusion. The system performances will be evaluated in extended fields tests in Kosovo. The 5 industrial partners in the project intend to develop a fully engineered detector within 1-1.5 years after the end of the project and to commercialise it through a joint venture.

Description of the Work:

The main work in the project will be the building and integration of the four main components of the system (MD array, GPR array, Biosensor and data fusion). All components come from previous technological developments and, in a number of cases, precisely from Humanitarian Demining. The GPR array and the data fusion are based on the feasibility study of the EUREKA! ANGEL project; the GPR core technology will be an improvement from the RTD DEMINE project for Humanitarian Demining funded under the EC 4th Framework Programme; and the MD is an enhancement of a commercially available and tested demining sensor. The work-plan reflects both the main goal of fielding a prototype to assess its performance and the idea of refining existing technologies purposely developed for Humanitarian Demining. In this sense the phase devoted to technical conception and specification of the system will be limited in time (6 months) as well as the development and construction phase (1 year). On the other hand, the phases concerning integration-test-refiniment-final test and assessment will take more than half of the duration of the project. The limited mechanical integration of the system is a crucial factor to keep the resources for the project focused on the key technological issues to reach the above mentioned objectives. The main tasks of integration will be those connected to data fusion and developing of the survey strategy and performance evaluation parameters. The 5 industrial partners in the project are committed to the successful commercial exploitation of the project results in demining and in other industrial applications. An exploitation plan will be developed based on a business plan for a joint venture, marketing and distribution of the DEMAND product.