Students Help Program Robots for Dangerous Mission in Ukraine​

IRE NASU
A scientist, if he really is, is a special person. The scientist sees a challenge to his intellect where others see insurmountable circumstances and arguments to retreat, a sort of “problem with an asterisk”. There are many approaches for each of such a problem. I will mention the only a few of them: to solve the problem as cheaply, as quickly as possible, as creatively, exactly as someone else or in a completely different way, or to look for an optimal solution. Even such a problem as replacing broken glass in the windows finds a suitable set of solutions, although the input parameters are only few and they are the same for everyone: polyethylene film (not the best quality), cardboard (quickly over), OSB-plates (there were very few). [...]


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Students Help Program Robots for Dangerous Mission in Ukraine​

Lancaster Online | F&M 
The “Jackal” rolls quietly across Hartman Green, its four-wheeled boxy shape with wires, lights and twin dome-shaped GPS antennas catch the attention of a passerby: “What is it?”
It is a robot, resembling a yellow toy dump truck, and one of four prototypes in the world that has been under development at Franklin & Marshall College’s physics lab. Students and their professors are researching Jackal’s future assigned task—helping to remove landmines. “The robots will be cleaning up explosive remnants of war or maybe not these particular ones, but machines based on their design,” says Tim Bechtel, director of F&M Science Outreach and senior teaching professor of geosciences. [...]


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F&M professors' research on Ukraine landmine removal faces uncertain future

Lancaster Online | F&M 
Researchers at Franklin & Marshall College who have been disabling landmines around Ukraine are facing uncertainty about their work as the country becomes a war zone.
Since 2015, a team of researchers led by Franklin & Marshall professors Tim Bechtel and Fronefield Crawford have been working to “demine” parts of eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists have tried to separate themselves and declare independence from Ukraine. The Franklin & Marshall professors have been conducting this work alongside researchers in Ukraine, Italy and Jordan, with funding through NATO’s Science for Peace and Security program. [...]


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Lancaster professors' project in limbo as Ukraine crisis puts landmine research on pause

Fox43
LANCASTER, Pa. — Eastern Ukraine is scattered with landmines. According to the United Nations, the area is one of the most contaminated in the world for makeshift mines and the explosive remnants poses a threat to nearly two million residents.
Since 2015, Franklin and Marshall College professors Dr. Fronefield Crawford and Dr. Tim Bechtel, have been working with a team of researchers from around the world; like in Italy, Jordan and Ukraine, to find ways to disable landmines using robotic sensors.
"I thought this is great opportunity for me to jump in and deploy some of my skills as a physicist to a humanitarian project that can help people," said Crawford.
As tensions escalate between Ukraine and Russia, the future of the NATO sponsored project is uncertain.
"The fact that we can't use this in Ukraine is disappointment. But if we develop the technology, it could be deployed elsewhere," Crawford added. [...]

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Numerical Design and Experimental Validation of a Plastic 3D-Printed Waveguide Antenna for Shallow Object Microwave Imaging

Luca Bossi, Pierluigi Falorni, Saverio Priori, Roberto Olmi & Lorenzo Capineri 
Microwave imaging of shallow buried objects has been demonstrated with holographic radar for landmine detection, civil engineering and cultural heritage. A key component of this system is the antenna based on a truncated cylindrical waveguide with two feeds. This paper investigates for the first time a manufacturing technology based on the 3D printing of a volumetric cylindrical plastic antenna. [...]

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The Slow-Motion  Pandemic: Land Mines

Lorenzo Capineri, Gennadiy Pochanin, Khaled Asfar, Fronefield Crawford and Tim Bechtel
Sunday, April 4, 2021 was the second International Mine Awareness Day since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. It’s an interesting milestone to ponder, and tempts us to paraphrase the 2001 remark to the press by then United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan, that “mines are weapons of mass destruction in slow motion”. We might say that mines are a pandemic in slow motion.
 
While health officials and researchers around the world leapt into action to develop tests and vaccines to respond to COVID-19, the response to the slow-motion “pandemic” of landmines has fallen behind in the last seven years, after more than a decade of progress.
 
Before the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty became binding international law in March of 1999, tens of thousands of mine casualties occurred worldwide every year since the 1930s. This implies about one million casualties. [...]

Article on "La Repubblica"

Università di Firenze, messo a punto un robot contro le mine antiuomo
Una squadra di robot contro le mine antiuomo. Da quello dotato di radar, in grado di mappare un'intera area di guerra e segnalare le posizioni sospette, a quello con il metal detector, capace di identificare gli oggetti metallici, fino a quello con il sensore olografico per scovare gli ordini esplosivi non metallici e ricostruirne con un'immagine forma e dimensioni.
L'Università di Firenze è in prima linea nello sviluppo delle tecnologie per individuare le bombe inesplose rimaste nascoste nelle zone dove hanno avuto luogo combattimenti ed è stata assoldata dalla Nato per un nuovo importante progetto che coinvolge atenei di tutto il mondo.
Il team di ricerca del dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione coordinato dal professor Lorenzo Capineri, docente di Elettronica, era già stato coinvolto dal 2015 al 2018 nel programma 'Science for Peace and Security' della Nato. Il risultato è la messa a punto di un prototipo di robot innovativo, 'UGO-1st', capace di rintracciare gli ordigni nascosti senza mettere a rischio gli artificieri. Lo strumento, che [...]

Article on "UNIFI Magazine"

Robot innovativi contro le mine antiuomo
Ci sono guerre che non finiscono mai. Anche quando i contendenti hanno cessato le ostilità. Le bombe inesplose rimaste nelle aree dei combattimenti, come le mine antiuomo, causano ogni anno nel mondo la mutilazione degli arti o la morte di migliaia di civili, la maggior parte bambini, e precludono l’uso di ampi territori alla popolazione civile. D’altra parte, l’individuazione e la rimozione degli ordigni bellici è uno dei lavori più pericolosi al mondo: quando si deve disinnescare una mina il rischio più grande lo assume chi va per primo.Da anni un gruppo di ricerca dell’Ateneo coordinato da Lorenzo Capineri, docente di Elettronica presso il Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’informazione, lavora su metodi e tecnologie elettroniche utili a rendere più efficiente e sicuro lo sminamento umanitario.
La ricerca fiorentina è stata al centro di un primo progetto della Nato dal 2015 al 2018 nell’ambito del programma “Science for Peace and Security”. Il risultato è stato un prototipo di robot innovativo, “UGO-1st”, capace di rintracciare gli ordigni nascosti senza mettere a rischio gli artificieri. Lo strumento, che va oltre alla tecnologia del metal detector applicabile ai soli ordigni con contenuto metallico, si basa sull’associazione di due diversi tipi di radar: uno, ad impulsi ad azione rapida, scandaglia il terreno fino alla profondità [...]