Preparation of GPR+MD sensors evaluation tests in Japan and Afghanistan

Abstract

Currently there are a few projects for landmine detection in Afghanistan, which is supported by the Japanese government. Some field test for landmine detection sensors have been carried out in Afghanistan and Japan. We introduce in this paper about the plan of these projects, and its evaluation tests. JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency) which is under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)) is developing unmanned vehicles which are mounted sensors for AP landmine detection. The prototype of the sensors and equipments will be ready by February 2005 and will be tested in a test site in Japan by March 2005. Then, it is planned to be evaluated in Afghanistan in summer 2005. JICS (Japan International Cooperation System) which is under the Ministry of Foreign affairs (MOFA) has a project on Developing Mine Clearance related equipment in Afghanistan. In this project, we plan to evaluate mine detectors in Afghanistan until March 2005. The evaluation test of JICS project has already started in August-Deecember 2004, in Afghanistan, In the evaluation the both projects, we are preparing test lanes. Most of the sensors to be evaluated is a combination of a metal detector and GPR, and as for GPR, there has been not many examples of such evaluation tests. In this paper, we introduce the outline of the evaluation test, and also discuss some technical aspects of the evaluation test for the combination sensors of a metal detector and a GPR.