Every 28 minutes, someone in the world is injured by one of the 80 million landmines currently in the ground. Our task is to detonate these landmines using UAV technology, thus reducing humanitarian and civilian casualties.
Using a drone rather than risking a human life is far more efficient, inexpensive, and applicable. Currently, there is little research on disarming and detonation of landmines, so we are excited to develop something that has never been done before!
In our brainstorming session, we have each found inspiration in various disarming methods, including:
- Applying pressure on the landmine by injecting terrathane, an inexpensive, waterproof, hardening geotechnical foam product typically used to lift concrete
- Neutralizing the landmine with a high-powered microwave device
- Dragging a device behind the UAV to detonate the landmine
- Dropping an object on the landmine to agitate and detonate the mine
- Using potential energy to transfer pressure at a safe time
Given the opportunity, we hope to dive deeper into each of these methods as a possible plan of action to save lives.
By Premal Patel, Urvi Patel, Everett Pitts, Alexa Senio, and Jeffrey Small