Laser probe for underground landmine discrimination and neutralization

There are three steps to performing landmine clearing operations. Mine disposal experts first detect suspect devices, discriminate the objects, and finally neutralize the landmines. Can lasers be useful in accelerating and perhaps even improving this process? They can obviously be used for direct radiation of surface landmines. We tested it successfully on five different types of landmine. For underground landmines, it is inefficient; laser energy is wasted in heating the ground, and is not applied to destroying the mine. After consideration of the traditional method for clearing landmines, it was concluded that the use of mechanical probes could provide a feasible solution to bring a laser beam directly to the mine. Since mechanical probes are in contact with the mine, they could be equipped with an optical fiber that can deliver the laser to the mine and destroy it without having to dig it out. In one single step the mine could be burned right after it is located, reducing the duration and risk of the operation and preventing its terrorist reuse. The idea of an "optical laser probe" was pushed further and a single low-cost probe was designed and patented. The investigation of hyperspectral discrimination for underground objects based on an adaptation of our device has studied in collaboration with the COPL, Quebec. We conclude that the use of an optical probe to locate a suspect object, discriminate and destroy it in the same operation signicantly improves the speed and security of landmine clearing operations.