A drone that promises to clear up landmines at ten times the pace of current technologies has just launched a funding effort on Kickstarter.
The drone was created by Massoud Hassani, whose work you may be aware of. In 2011, while Hassani was a grad student at the Design Academy Eindhoven in The Netherlands, he developed the "Mine Kafon," a giant, many-footed ball designed to blow through minefields on a breeze, detonating their ordinance as it went.
Now Hassani and his team have developed a drone to accomplish the same goal but by a different means.
In short, the Mine Kafon Drone will operate with three functions. First there is the mapping process, during which the drone will identify all potential mines in an area with GPS tags. Then detection, where it will inspect troubling areas with a closer eye to find individual mines. And lastly destruction, which involves the use of a robotic gripping arm to do the deed.
A quote from the United Nations on the Mine Kafon Drone page offers cautious enthusiasm for the project, saying it needs "to be tested in a pilot to see how we can deploy them in different environments," while anti-landmine groups such as the Mine Advisory Group offer more enthusiasm, saying it would use a Kafon Drone "right away."
While Hassani admits that precise geolocation might be difficult, it's certainly a project with a worthy goal. As always, you have to be cautious when you crowdfund—there's no guarantee a project will succeed even with full funding. But hopefully, crowdfunding or otherwise, this tech will prove useful and start saving lives sooner rather than later.
Source: Kickstarter via The Verge
David Grossman is a staff writer for PopularMechanics.com. He's previously written for The Verge, Rolling Stone, The New Republic and several other publications. He's based out of Brooklyn.
