A Clear Road Ahead- Developing a Combined Technological and Socio-Economic Approach to Freeing Affected Communities from Anti-Vehicle Landmines

清除地雷可以从许多不同的方面拯救和改善生命。排雷可以通过清除交通联系和路线，帮助社区获得农业用地、市场和粮食供应、学校、医院和其他基本服务。通过清除道路和田野中的杀伤人员地雷和反车辆地雷，人们和社区得以重新联系起来，这可以为最需要这些联系的发展中国家带来巨大的社会经济效益。清除道路上的机动车辆也是其他援助机构和政府服务进入偏远社区的先决条件。它恢复了行动自由，培养了免于恐惧的自由。但是，使道路和田野不受地雷威胁的努力由于两个问题而变得复杂：1)目前排雷方法的速度缓慢，特别是对某些种类的地雷；2)需要在最短的时间内优先清理不同地区和土地类型，以获得最大的利益。我们提出一个项目来解决这两个问题，创造一种新的探测地雷的技术工具，以及一种在国家、地区甚至社区各级审查文化、政治和社会经济因素的方法。这种方法可以保证在最短的时间内部署技术以获得最大的利益。据我们所知，这是第一次尝试这种综合战略。该项目的具体目标是埋设在道路和田野中的最低金属自动地雷，这是一种用其他方法很难探测到的地雷，因此清除起来非常缓慢和昂贵。除了这种协同方法，该项目还将受益于我们提出的清除avm技术的独特优势。这是因为我们的传感器依赖于对爆炸物的频率敏感探测，这些爆炸物大量存在于反车辆地雷中。该传感器的底层技术基于四极共振（QR）方法，该方法依赖于一种简单的检测机制：对感兴趣的爆炸物以特定频率施加脉冲或一系列射频（RF）脉冲，并寻找返回信号的存在（或不存在）。与金属探测器一样，一个特殊设计的平面射频天线被放置在靠近地面的地方，并以待探测爆炸物的QR频率或接近QR频率的射频脉冲序列馈送。然后用同样的天线来探测激发后炸药发出的微弱信号。与金属探测的重要区别在于，探测的是地雷内实际含有的爆炸物，而不是地雷的任何特征（如套管或触发器），因此虚警率低。这对人道主义排雷尤其重要，因为人道主义排雷的目的是清除被调查地区的大部分地雷，如果不是全部地雷的话。

Clearing landmines both saves and improves lives in numerous different ways. Demining can help a community access agricultural land, markets and food supply, schools, hospitals and other essential services, through the clearing of transportation links and routes. By clearing anti-personnel (AP) and anti-vehicle mines (AVMs) from roads and fields, people and communities are reconnected, and this can bring huge socio-economic benefits to developing countries where these are most needed. Clearing AVMs from roads can also be a prerequisite for other aid agencies and government services to access remote communities. It restores freedom of movement and fosters freedom from fear. However, efforts to clear roads and fields from the threat of landmines are complicated by two issues: 1) the slow speed of current demining approaches particularly for certain classes of landmine; and 2) the need to prioritise the order in which different areas and land types are cleared for maximum benefit in the shortest possible timeframe. We propose a project to tackle both of these issues, creating a new technological tool for detecting landmines alongside a methodology for examining cultural, political, and socio-economic factors at the national, district, and even community levels. This approach can guarantee the deployment of the technology for the greatest possible benefit in the shortest possible time. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time that a combined strategy of this kind has been attempted. The particular target of the project is minimum-metal AVMs laid in roads and fields, which is a class of landmines that is very difficult to detect by other methods, and thus very slow and costly to clear. Beyond this synergistic approach, the project will benefit from the unique advantages of our proposed technology for the clearance of AVMs. This is because our sensor relies on a frequency-sensitive detection of the explosive material, which is contained in large quantities in anti-vehicle mines.The sensor's underlying technology is based on a quadrupole resonance (QR) approach, which relies on a simple detection mechanism: a pulse or series of radiofrequency (RF) pulses is applied at a particular frequency for the explosives of interest, and the presence (or absence) of a return signal is sought. As with metal detectors, a specially-designed planar RF antenna is placed close to ground level and fed with a sequence of RF pulses at or close to the QR frequency of the explosive to be detected. The same antenna is then used to detect the weak signals emitted by the explosive following the excitation. The important difference from metal detection is that it is the actual explosive contained within the mine that is detected and not any feature of the mine (such as the casing or the trigger), so the false alarm rate is low. This is particularly important for humanitarian demining, which aims to clear most, if not all, of the landmines in the interrogated terrain.