University of Coimbra develops new robot for humanitarian demining efforts

Researchers from the University of Coimbra’s (UC) Institute of Systems and Robotics are developing a new robotic platform to automate the dangerous job of clearing minefields for humanitarian demining efforts.

The system is being developed by the Canadian robotics maker, Clearpath Robotics under the Partnerbot Grant Program, which is being sponsored, through supply of its Husky A200 unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) as the mobile robotic base.

University of Coimbra senior lecturer and academic liaison for the project, Lino Marques, said the minesweeping is an extremely dangerous and time-intensive process.

”Robots do not get tired, they can be extremely thorough performing their jobs and their cost is infinitely smaller than that of a human life. For these reasons, robots are a perfect solution for the minesweeping problem,” Marques added.

The mobile robotic base is designed with open source software using the robot operating system (ROS) and features navigation and localisation sensors, ground penetration radar, as well as a custom robotic arm with an attached metal detector.

Clearpath Robotics CEO, Matt Rendall said, ”Clearpath Robotics was originally founded with a focus to clear landmines using a swarm of small mobile robots – that’s how we got our name – so it’s very exciting for us to work with the University of Coimbra to advance this incredibly noble research.”

The company is likely to conduct a second round of field tests in mid-2014 with minimal changes although the first round of field tests was interrupted due to issues with the custom robotic arm in 2013.

Specifically, the robot has been developed to accomplish three key tasks, to see terrain characteristics, navigate across the terrain and also detect and localise landmines.