Research & Development
Research and development is an essential part of mine action. New technologies are developed in order to improve the existing methods for manual clearance, animal detection and mechanical demining. Improvement of the existing techniques and resources is essential to enhance the safety and cost-effectiveness of demining.
When researching new technologies, it is important to keep in mind that not all mined areas are equal. Each territory presents its own challenges, and with each challenge comes the need for a different demining technique or machine.
Research and development of new technologies has largely contributed to an improvement of mine action. For instance, the enhancement of metal detectors allowed deminers to find mines more accurately and the design of the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) increases the speed of demining by avoiding unnecessary excavations (the GPR can determine the shape of the metal allowing the deminer to differentiate between a mine and scrap metal).
DEMIRA has been involved in several research and development projects: the LOTUS Project and the HADI FMR 2000 Project are examples for this engagement. DEMIRA strived to avoid some of the issues that are typical for development projects in mine action by etsablishing an open communication between engineers and deminers. As a result of this close cooperation, both projects were a big success.