Early on a June morning in 2023, my colleagues and I drove down a bumpy dirt road north of Kyiv in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Armed Forces were conducting training exercises nearby, and mortar shells arced through the sky.
We arrived at a vast field for a technology demonstration set up by the United Nations. Across the 25-hectare field—that’s about the size of 62 American football fields—the U.N. workers had scattered 50 to 100 inert mines and other ordnance. Our task was to fly our drone over the area and use our machine learning software to detect as many as possible. And we had to turn in our results within 72 hours. The scale was daunting: The area was 10 times as large as anything we’d attempted before with our drone demining startup, Safe Pro AI.
Read more…
Source: IEEE Spectrum
Related:
- ADF Sappers ensure Nauru is safe
April 9, 2025
A team of ADF explosives experts worked with Government of Nauru authorities to dispose of two World War 2-era unexploded ordnance (UXO) discovered in a residential area on March 18. Led by Sergeant Matthew Watson, of the 20th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Squadron (20 EOD Sqn), the contingent, including explosive ordnance disposal technicians and an advanced medical ...
- Ukrainian forces planted mines at cemeteries in Kursk Region during retreat
April 7, 2025
Soldiers from the Bars-Kursk unit, engaged in combat in the Sumy area, are conducting daily demining operations at various locations, including cemeteries that were mined by Ukrainian troops during their retreat from the Kursk Region. The unit’s sappers are urging local residents not to visit their relatives’ graves this Easter, as these areas remain unsafe, according ...
- Charities call for more global action on International Day for Mine Awareness
April 4, 2025
As the world marks International Day of Mine Awareness, charities have issued a renewed call for more global action as demining efforts backslide. With many Baltic nations stating preparations to withdraw from the international convention against anti-personnel landmines, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines warns that demining efforts are regressing. In March, the defence ministers of ...
- Vietnam: Wartime bomb with intact detonator disposed in Nghe An
April 4, 2025
Military forces in the central province of Nghe An on April 3 successfully disposed of a wartime bomb weighing over 226kg, whose detonator was still intact. Previously, a man in My Son commune, Do Luong district discovered a metal object resembling a bomb about 4 metres underground while he was using an excavator to level ...
- Which countries are quitting a key landmine treaty and why?
April 4, 2025
NATO members Poland, Finland and all three Baltic states have queued up over the past few weeks to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines, in the face of what they say are growing military threats from Russia. The moves threaten to reverse decades of campaigning by activists who say there should be a global ...
- Angola needs $240 million to clear hundreds of civil war minefields
April 2, 2025
Angola requires $240 million from government or donor funding to clear nearly 1,000 minefields from the civil war that ended more than two decades ago, the National Mine Action Agency head said. The landmines, planted during the 27-year civil war up to 2002, have left people with disabilities and continue to cause harm. Many remain displaced ...
- Vietnam: Silently, officers and soldiers of the Engineer Corps in mine clearance
April 1, 2025
In today’s peacetime, there are still silent wars within silence, dangers within dangers and hardships of the Engineer soldiers. That is the war in searching for bombs, mines, and explosives left over from the war . At the border of Ha Giang, the Engineer soldiers are determined to “clean and safe” the land contaminated by ...
- Luxembourg provides 2.16 mln USD to support mine clearance in Cambodia
April 1, 2025
Luxembourg on Tuesday signed up to provide 2 million euros (about 2.16 million U.S. dollars) to support a mine clearance project in Cambodia. The deal was inked in Phnom Penh in the presence of visiting Crown Prince Guillaume Jean Joseph Marie of Luxembourg and Ly Thuch, a senior minister and first vice president of the Cambodian ...
- Sweden to provide over €7 million for drone and mine clearance coalitions for Ukraine
March 28, 2025
The Swedish government has instructed the Swiss Armed Forces to make payments to coalitions of forces and assets in the areas of demining and unmanned aerial vehicles under the Ramstein format. According to a statement by the Swedish government this support in the amount of SEK 80 million (€7.2 million) is part of the 18th military ...
- Norway to provide NOK 3 billion in humanitarian support to Ukraine
March 28, 2025
The humanitarian consequences of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine are severe and the need for assistance is enormous. In light of this, the Norwegian Government has decided to provide a total of NOK 3 billion in humanitarian support to Ukraine and to the refugee response in Ukraine’s neighbouring countries in 2025. The funding is part ...
- Cambodia: CMAC clears way for Funan Techo Canal construction
March 27, 2025
The Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) is clearing explosive remnants of war (ERW) along the route of the Funan Techo Canal to secure the construction site, ensure workers’ safety, and contribute to the successful completion of the infrastructure project. Director-General of CMAC, Heng Ratana, said yesterday that the CMAC team is clearing aerial bombs, cluster munitions, ...
- Ukraine: SES, National Police sappers clear over 2,400 km² of land
March 27, 2025
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, sappers from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SES) and the National Police have cleared over 2,400 km² of Ukrainian territory. According to the deputy minister, Ukraine has become a global hub for humanitarian demining over the course of more than three years of full-scale war. “Ukrainian sappers have ...
- New Frontlines and an Uncertain Future for Mine Clearance in Colombia
March 26, 2025
Nearly a decade after the landmark 2016 Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and a communist guerilla group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the prevalence of landmines remains a critical issue in the country. As mine clearance efforts turn toward active conflict zones in Colombia where humanitarian law is disregarded, buried and ...
- €5m German boost for HALO landmine clearance in Syria
March 26, 2025
HALO’s programme will expand to save lives across the country in response to soaring accidents caused by explosives The German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO) supports the HALO Trust in Syria with a €5M grant to boost vital mine clearance efforts as tens of thousands of people return to reclaim their pre-war homes and cultivate their fields. ...
- Vietnam to build strategy for education on bomb, mine accident prevention
March 26, 2025
The Vietnam National Mine Action Centre (VNMAC) on March 26 organised a workshop on building a national strategy for education on bomb and mine accident prevention by 2030, with a vision to 2050. In his opening speech, Colonel Le Quang Hop, VNMAC Deputy General Director, stated that immediately after the complete liberation of the South in ...
- New understanding cements continued UNIFIL support in demining in south Lebanon
March 25, 2025
UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) yesterday, renewing the UN peacekeeping mission’s support for humanitarian and operational demining in the UNIFIL area of operations in south Lebanon. UNIFIL Chief of Staff Major General Jean-Jacques Fatinet and the Director of the LAF’s Lebanon Mine Action Centre (LMAC), Brigadier General ...
- Vietnam: US-funded mine action demolition training range inaugurated in Hà Nội
March 24, 2025
Deputy Defence Minister, General Phùng Sĩ Tấn, Deputy Commanding General of Homeland Affairs for US Army Pacific (USARPAC) Major General Lance Okamura, and US Ambassador to Việt Nam Marc Knapper on Monday presided over the official handover ceremony of the Ba Vì Humanitarian Mine Action Demolition Training Range. The facility, worth over US$700,000, spanning over 2 ...
- Italy launches EUR 6 mln grant competition for landmine clearance in Ukraine
March 20, 2025
The Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) has announced a EUR 6 million grant competition for demining operations in war-affected frontline regions of Ukraine. The maximum funding per project is EUR 1.8 million. According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy, projects should focus on both technical and non-technical land surveys and must include public awareness campaigns about ...
- British bomb disposal expert injured in Gaza
March 20, 2025
A British bomb disposal expert has been injured in an attack on a UN facility in the Gaza Strip, the charity he works for has said. The 51-year-old, who was not named, was one of five people injured in an explosion that also killed a UN worker at the facility in Deir al-Balah on Wednesday morning, ...
- Battle continues in Solomon Islands against UXOs eight decades after WWII
March 19, 2025
More than 80 years since the Battle of Guadalcanal in Solomon Islands, communities today are still grappling with the unexploded devices left behind. The major battle in World War Two resulted in thousands of unexploded and abandoned ordnaces (UXOs/AXOs) that litter the islands today. Humanitarian group, The Halo Trust, has been surveying the country’s airfields, ammunition ...
- Russian sappers conducting demining operations in 36 settlements in Kursk Region
March 18, 2025
Sappers are conducting demining operations in 36 liberated settlements within the Kursk Region. Currently, approximately 19,000 hectares of land, over 370 kilometers of roads, and more than 6,700 buildings and structures have been cleared of explosives, according to Alexander Khinshtein, the region’s deputy governor. “The sappers have already commenced their work in 36 communities. So far, ...
- Austria to allocate millions of euros to Ukraine for mine clearance and grain delivery
March 14, 2025
Vienna will allocate €5 million to Ukraine for mine clearance efforts and €2 million for grain delivery following a visit by Austria’s Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger to Kyiv on Friday 14 March. Meinl-Reisinger is reported to have arrived on a visit to Ukraine on 14 March. She announced that Austria will allocate €5 million to assist ...