Detection of Explosives and Landmines: Methods and Field Experience

Citation

Rigelsford, J. (2003), "Detection of Explosives and Landmines: Methods and Field Experience", Sensor Review, Vol. 23 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2003.08723dae.002

Detection of Explosives and Landmines: Methods and Field Experience

Detection of Explosives and Landmines: Methods and Field Experience

H. Schubert and A. Kuznetsov (Eds)Kluwer Academic Publishers2002249 pp.ISBN 1-4020-0692-6£54.00

Keywords: Sensors, Explosives, Land mines

"Detection of Explosives and Landmines" contains 25 papers describing physical, chemical and biological methods related to the complex task of mine detection. The papers were originally presented at the third NATO sponsored Advanced Research Workshop on Explosive Detection and Humanitarian Demining.

The first paper "Chemical methods for the detection of mines and explosives" describes the requirements of chemical sensor systems for the detection of mines on the basic results achieved by sniffer dogs. The use of rats, bees, antibodies, conducting polymers, fluorescent polymers, surface acoustic waves, and MO_X sensors, are also presented.

"Humanitarian demining: sensor design and signal processing aspects" presents results from the HUDEM project – the Belgian project on human demining. It includes results from multi-sensor data collection trials, ultra-wide band (UWB) ground penetrating radar (GPR), and nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) techniques.

"Detection of explosive vapours in ambient air by ion nonlinear drift spectrometry method", "Trace detection of components emanating from hidden explosives" and "Landmine detection with an electronic nose mounted on and airship" may also be of interest, along with "Explosives localisation and pre-identification based on UHF electromagnetic waves" and "A neutron- gamma method and apparatus for detection and identification of hidden objects in brick (concrete) walls".

Two papers that highlight some of the problems encountered when attempting to detect mines and explosives are presented, namely "Technology and the landmine problem: practical aspects of mine clearance operation" and "The problem of military TNT in NQR mine detector".

Overall, this is an interesting reference text that addresses some of the methods for using multiple sensor approaches for the important task of mine clearance. There are still many technical challenges to be solved before reliable detection of explosive, whether in buried landmines, carried by suicide bombers, or hidden in cars or aircraft cargo and baggage, is a reality.