I-Corps: Delivering Integrated Technology for Automated Wide-Area Humanitarian Mine Action Surveys

I-Corps项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是发展有效探测和清除广泛地表地区地雷的技术。人道主义排雷是指各机构（政府或其他机构）在冲突后地区对潜在危险地区进行调查，以发现、识别并随后清除任何爆炸性危险（地雷或未爆炸条例）的过程。人道主义排雷的目标是将以前受爆炸物污染的土地归还给受影响的社区，使人们能够使用和开发这些土地，而不必担心地雷和未爆弹药造成的伤亡。爆炸物种类繁多，它们所处的环境和可能发现它们的条件，造成了一个多方面的问题，需要创新的技术解决方案。该项目展示了无人机和机器学习在人道主义排雷行动应用中的强大而广泛的能力。这项技术的实施将大大提高排雷的速度和安全性，提高排雷作业人员的安全，并使社区能够收回以前无法进入的土地以供今后发展。I-Corps项目的基础是开发一种综合人工智能辅助无人机调查平台，排雷机构可以快速有效地使用该平台进行初步的广域调查。这项技术将节省随后在严重污染地区进行排雷活动的金钱和时间。这些方法不仅可以用于探测地雷和未爆弹药的直接证据，还可以用于探测爆炸坑、雷区警告标志或可能被爆炸物杀死的死牲畜等间接证据。该团队结合了最先进的深度学习技术、商用无人机和小型化光学传感器，创造了新的解决方案。这项技术包括无人机调查方法与创新的深度学习算法相结合。第一步包括整合商用可见光、热成像和多光谱无人机，对疑似被爆炸物污染的区域进行调查。在测量完成后，使用深度学习方法生成预测的爆炸物坐标位置。此外，还制作了一幅高质量的可疑危险区域地图，并对每种预测的爆炸物进行了标记，并标注了其预测的类别。整个过程无需使用互联网，用户友好，并且可以以每小时800平方米的速度检测和分类大多数空中可见的地雷和未爆炸的法令。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of technologies that effectively detect and clear landmines over wide surface areas. Humanitarian demining is the process where agencies (governmental or otherwise) survey a potentially hazardous area to detect, identify, and subsequently clear any explosive hazards (landmines or unexploded ordinance) in a post-conflict region. The goal of humanitarian demining is to release previously explosive-contaminated land back to impacted communities to allow the land to be used and developed without fear of injury and death caused by landmines and unexploded ordnance. The enormous variety of explosives, environments in which they lie, and conditions in which they may be found, create a multi-faceted problem that requires innovative technological solutions. This project is a demonstration of the powerful and wide-reaching capabilities of drones and machine learning in humanitarian mine action applications. The implementation of this technology will dramatically increase the rate and safety of demining, increasing the safety of demining operators, and allowing communities to reclaim previously inaccessible land for future development.This I-Corps project is based on the development of an integrated artificial intelligence-assisted unmanned aerial vehicle drone survey platform that a demining agency could quickly and effectively use to perform initial wide-area surveys. This technology will save money and time on subsequent demining activities in areas of critical contamination. The methods can be expanded to detect not only direct evidence of landmines and unexploded ordinances, but also indirect evidence such as explosion craters, minefield warning signs, or dead livestock potentially killed by explosives. Combining state-of-the-art deep learning technology, commercially available drones, and miniaturized optical sensors, this team created new solutions. This technology involves drone survey methods combined with innovative deep learning algorithms. The first step consists of integrating commercial visual light, thermal and multispectral drones to survey areas that are suspected to be contaminated with explosives. After the survey is complete, the deep learning method is used to generate the predicted coordinate locations of the explosives. In addition, a high-quality map of the suspected hazardous region is produced with each predicted explosive marked and labeled with its predicted class. The entire process takes place without using the internet, is user friendly, and can detect and classify most of the aerially-visible landmines and unexploded ordinances at a rate of 800 square meters per hour.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.