An innovative new landmine detector from Australia may help to save tens of thousands of lives every year, according to the world’s largest landmine clearance charity The HALO Trust.
Initial trials with HALO in Angola, where Princess Diana walked through a minefield in 1997 to highlight the indiscriminate weapons, indicate that landmines and deadly explosives could be cleared at least 30 per cent faster with the new generation detectors compared to traditional technology.
Created over decades by MRead, a venture between Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, and Australian business RFC Ambrian, the handheld magnetic resonance sensing detectors can detect low metal anti-tank and anti-personnel mines in notoriously heavily contaminated minefields.
“I am tremendously excited by the results of these trials in Angola, a place which has always been special to HALO thanks to our history with Princess Diana and her son Prince Harry. But this technology will travel way beyond Angola. With over two million landmines laid in Ukraine since 2022, landmine clearance needs to be faster, safer, and smarter. This new detector will be key to delivering our mission for a mine-free world,” says James Cowan, CEO of the HALO Trust.
“Landmines can make time stand still. They lie silent and invisible in the ground for many decades. Once disturbed they kill and maim civilians, as well as valuable livestock, preventing access to schools, roads, and prime agricultural land,” says Ronan Shenhav, Research & Development Officer at The HALO Trust.
It currently takes an average of 136 excavations to search for and clear a single landmine in Angola. MRead’s non-contact, ground-penetrating magnetic resonance sensing significantly reduces that ratio by using sensors to transmit low frequency radio pulses that directly detect the molecular fingerprint of buried target explosive compounds.
“Angola is particularly demanding for the use of conventional demining technologies due to the amount of low metal mines and scrap metal which can give false readings. This made it the perfect testing ground to put our detectors through their paces,” explains John Shanahan, CEO of MRead.
“We are thrilled with the results and the significant support from The HALO Trust. This technology had been developed primarily for the minerals sector over the past two decades, but MRead has adapted it to support humanitarian demining. The field trials have confirmed that our sensors work in a live minefield and could revolutionise mine clearance, save more lives, and enable land to be handed back to the communities more quickly, which is our primary goal.”
The trials also proved that the detectors can be effectively used in mine detection after as little as 30 minutes training, allowing more deminers to carry out their lifesaving work in less time.
Extensive field trials of MRead’s detectors, with enhancements built upon feedback from HALO Angola, are planned for 2025.
