Murderous Mines No Match for Aerial Mapping

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An Israeli company is using aerial photography to significantly improve the result of mapping minefields. The company says their method is faster and safer than the current method and could save lives.

A new technology that detects landmines by analyzing soil from the air is helping countries to clear perilous, unmapped minefields faster and more safely than ever before.

The system, from Israeli company Geomine, employs a type of aerial photography originally designed to analyze soil for agriculture.

An aircraft mounted multi-spectral camera photographs swathes of land which can then be analyzed for unexploded ordnance, which over time, leak nitrogen into the ground.

[Avi Buzaglo-Yoresh, Founder of Geomine]:
"Each material on the nature have its own signature and what we look for is for the signature that the mine leave(s) on the ground."

Geomine combines the aerial photography with satellite images and analyzes the findings to map out danger zones.

[...]

[Avi Buzaglo-Yoresh, Founder of Geomine]:
"When someone give(s) you a report of where he allocate(s) or where he put(s) the mine, he can do a mistake in the transferring of the data and the people that use his data can do a mistake so you open a quite large variety of mistakes. What I suggest is not to be a part of the mapping and to have the evidence on the ground."

The United Nations says that currently it would take more than 1,100 years at a cost of US$33 billion to clear the planet of mines, provided that no new ones are deployed.

New technologies to improve the traditionally conservative de-mining process are actively being sought.

The Israeli military, which is responsible for about two million mines spread across some 77 square miles, says that Geomine's system could make its work more efficient.