Literature Review on Landmines and Detection Methods

Detection of buried antipersonnel landmines (APL) is a demanding task in which one tries to obtain information about characteristics of the soil and of objects buried in it. Various methods that are used to detect buried landmines have been examined. None of these methods meets the standards that have been set by authorities such as the United Nations or the United States Army. Therefore there is an urgent need for new and improved methods to be developed, particularly in view of the threat that abandoned landmines pose to civilian populations. Various researches reviewed in this work showed thermography to be a good method to detect shallowly buried objects. Detection systems capable of quickly and accurately detecting buried landmines are the only possibility to significantly improve the demining process. Due to low signal-to-noise ratio, changing environment conditions that influence measurements and existence of other natural or man-made objects that give sensor readings similar to the landmine, interpretation of sensor data for landmine detection is a complicated task.