Design and Control of a Manipulator for Landmine Detection

Abstract

Antipersonnel mines infest fields all over the world. According to recent estimates, landmines are killing and maiming more than 2,000 innocent civilians per month [1]. The problem of landmine detection and removal requires the cooperation of various engineering fields. For this purpose, new technologies such as improved sensors, efficient manipulators and mobile robots are needed. This paper describes the configuration and control architecture of a scanning manipulator to detect antipersonnel landmines. The main features of the system that consists of a sensor head able to detect some kind of landmines and a manipulator to move the sensor head over large areas, conveniently sensorized to scan irregular terrains in the presence of obstacles are presented. Experiments show the performance of the whole system.