Development of Mine Detection Robot System
The Mine Detection Robot supports the mine removal work in countries where mines are buried, such as Afghanistan. The development started from September, 2003. Considering running on rough terrains, the robot has four crawlers, and hydraulic motors in front and rear were serially connected by piping so that they could rotate synchronously. Two work arms were mounted on the robot, one was a horizontal multi-joint SCARA type with motorized 2-link arm, while the other was a vertical multi-joint manipulator with 6 degrees of freedom. Also, domestic evaluation tests were carried out from February to March, 2005, followed by overseas validation tests in Croatia from February to March, 2006. These tests were conducted with a mine detecting senor mounted on the Robot, and the detection performance was evaluated by its mine detection rate.
Experimental design for test and evaluation of anti-personnel landmine detection based on vehicle-mounted GPR systems
This paper discusses an experimental design method for test and evaluation of anti-personnel landmine detection systems using ground penetrating radar (GPR). Vehicle-mounted mine detection systems to be evaluated here have been developed by six research teams from universities and industries founded by Japan Science and Technology Agency. Sensors used are a GPR and electromagnetic induction (EMI) fused type, which provides underground images to operators. In our basic concept, the systems make no explicit alarm and the final decision whether or not a shadow in the image is a real landmine is left to the operator. This is the same way as medical doctors find cancer by reading CT images. To test these kinds of systems, i.e., to evaluate probability of detection (PD), false detection rate, and other characteristics, seven test lanes using more than 200 landmine surrogates has been designed. Since operators' pre-knowledge of the locations of buried targets significantly influences the detection results in our systems, six out of the seven test lanes are designed to be suitable for blind tests. A comprehensive test and evaluation using the designed experimental lanes is in progress for over one month, and some results obtained from the test are discussed.
Suitability and water quality criteria of an open drainage municipal sewage water at Coimbatore, used for irrigation.
Sanganur canal is the major open drainage system which has intricate linkage with storm water supply, domestic sewage and industrial effluent disposal. Water samples from various stations were collected and analysed for physicochemical parameters to assess the water quality of the Sanganur canal system. The study revealed that physicochemical parameters like pH, EC, TDS, DO, BOD, COD exceeded the permissible limit, clearly indicating the need of proper treatment of waste water before discharge into the Noyyal river.