HOPE + Landmine detection in Sarajevo

HOPE detection equipment

Validation campaign for HOPE in Ispra (Italy). On a secial test-site for landmines. Different types of landmines in various soils were detected.

Customer: EU (European Union)

In-Lab tests

During the development phase of the HOPE GPR sensor, numerous in-lab tests were performed to verify the detecting abilities of the new hardware. This included handheld measurements in RSTs test facility as well as machine controlled trials at the university of Karlsruhe using their x-y scanning device.

The results showed that the resolution and the range of the new radar are sufficient to detect anti-personnel landmines that are buried in the ground. Furthermore it was shown that shape information could be derived from the data to help distinguish mine-shaped objects from other targets.

JCR Ispra

The Joint Research Centre (» www.jrc.it) at Ispra, Italy established an outdoor test facility for civilian demining technologies. It features seven different soil areas containing various objects including mine simulants of different sizes and false targets like stones or cans. During a one-week measurement campaign in May 2001 all three sensors of project HOPE were tested there.


The multi-sensor approach was verified and data were collected using two different sensor heads ( MD + MWR / MD + GPR ).

Sarajevo, Bosnia

In order to collect data from mines with real explosives two test fields with inert mines were prepared by the HOPE project partner NPA (Norwegian Peoples Aid) ( » www.npaid.org), a Non Governmental Organisation working in civilian mine clearance world-wide. The trials were the first ones to use the Optical Positioning system to monitor the sensor position during the handheld scan.

Based on the data gathered in Bosnia, new algorithms were developed to reconstruct images from irregular scans.