Innovative Drone to Demine World Land Mines

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There are 100 million land mines in more than 60 countries worldwide. Every day, 10 innocent civilians are killed or maimed by these explosives

The Mine Kafon Drone (MKD), a prototype of airborne demining system, has been raising money on Kickstarter, and Its developer says the drone will clear all land mines around the world in less than a decade.

According to the company’s Kickstarter page and website, the Mine Kafon Drone is an unmanned airborne demining system that uses a three-step process to map, detect and detonate land mines up to 20 times faster than currently available technologies.

The system delivers accurate updates and information on mine clearing operations.

Flying over dangerous areas to map, detect and detonate landmines from a safe distance. The drone works autonomously, and is equipped with three separate interchangeable robotic extensions:

Mapping – First the drone flies over the whole field with an aerial 3D mapping system to identify all the dangerous areas with GPS way points.

Detection – Equipped with a robotic metal detecting arm the MKD hovers above the ground at approximately 4 cm to detect mines. Every detected mine is geotagged on the operator’s system to construct a map of known mine locations.

Destroying – Attached with a robotic gripping arm, the drone places a small detonator on every detected mine. The land mine is then detonated from a safe distance using a timer.

The innovator, Afghanistan-born Massoud Hassani, moved to the Netherlands as a teenager and went on to graduate from Eindhoven’s celebrated Design Academy. He created the Mine Kafon, a wind powered spherical device that rolls across minefields, detonating landmines on contact, as his graduation projec. This award-winning invention has met with international acclaim. Later he devloped the drone at its present model.

The company Hassani Design BV was created in 2013, with the establishment of Mine Kafon R&D Lab.