Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction Volume 11 Issue 2 The Journal of Mine Action Article 42 April 2008 Intelligent Robotic Behaviors for Landmine Detection and Marking David Bremmer Idaho National Laboratory David Few Idaho National Laboratory Curtis Nielsen Idaho National Laboratory Miles Walton Idaho National Laboratory Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cisr-journal Part of the Defense and Security Studies Commons, Emergency and Disaster Management Commons, Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons, and the Peace and Conflict Studies Commons Recommended Citation Bremmer, David; Few, David; Nielsen, Curtis; and Walton, Miles (2008) "Intelligent Robotic Behaviors for Landmine Detection and Marking," Journal of Mine Action : Vol. 11 : Iss. 2 , Article 42. Available at: https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cisr-journal/vol11/iss2/42 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery at JMU Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction by an authorized editor of JMU Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Bremmer et al.: Intelligent Robotic Behaviors for Landmine Detection and Marking should absorb most of the blast energy.6 Also, During a recent visit to Cornell University, all the expensive sensors and computers are Nobel Peace Prize Co-laureate Rae McGrath had enclosed in a watertight, rugged box, which is the chance to meet with Cornell MineSweeper. being refined to meet military specifications “I really want to congratulate Cornell for allow- Intelligent Robotic Behaviors for Landmine Detection and Marking for explosion proofing. ing this young team the freedom to develop the idea. What excited me the most was that the Good Support and Growth team … hasn’t made the mistake of so many This article discusses experimental results achieved with a robotic countermine system that utilizes Although completely student-led, Cor- other groups that set out to find the solution. nell MineSweeper has greatly benefited from They’ve really done their research and they’re Andres Mack is a junior in the College autonomous behaviors and a mixed-initiative control scheme to address the challenges of detecting the assistance of two professors in the robotics developing something that’s very flexible. The of Engineering at Cornell University. and sensors area at Cornell: Dr. Ephrahim Gar- next step for them is to go to somewhere with He is also the Business Team Lead- and marking buried landmines. By correlating aerial imagery and ground-based robot mapping, the cia and Dr. William Philpot. Garcia is currently the problem of landmines,” said McGrath.7 er for Cornell MineSweeper. Cornell MineSweeper is a nonprofit student the head of Cornell’s Laboratory for Intelligent With its fresh design, quality of advisers interface provides context for the operator to task the robot. Once tasked, the robot can perform organization funded partially by Cor- Machine Systems and contributed his many and humanitarian mission, Cornell Mine- nell University, Gladiator Technologies, the search and detection task without the use of accurate global positioning system information or years of experience in the development of dis- Sweeper is starting to grow in the Cornell Kionix, MaxBotix, Legend Technolo- gies, Sunstone Circuits, Igus, Ad- tributed intelligence in small robotic swarms engineering community. Initially comprised continuous communication with the operator. Results show that the system was able to find and and autonomous robots. His experience as a of only six members, the team has expanded vanced Circuits and the Bartel family. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in only one semester to 41 committed students Andres S. Mack mark landmines with a very low level of human involvement. In addition, the data indicates that the Project Manager has also been an important coming from all engineering fields and is still Business Team Manager asset to the team. Philpot is currently the Asso- growing. In the beginning, people thought Cornell MineSweeper robotic system may be able to decrease the time to find mines and increase the detection, accuracy ciate Director of the School of Civil & Environ- Cornell MineSweeper was a group of engineers B62-P4 Upson Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 / USA mental Engineering and the Program Leader that liked the computer game Minesweeper so and reliability. E-mail: [email protected] for Remote Sensing at the Cornell Institute for much they gathered to play it; now students Web site: http://minesweep- Resource Information Systems. His research inquire about the robot. MineSweeper is nei- er.engineering.cornell.edu/ experience in the physics of optical remote sens- ther a game nor an idea anymore; it will soon by David J. Bruemmer, Douglas A. Few, Curtis W. Nielsen and Miles C. Walton [ Idaho National Laboratory ] ing, spatial and spectral pattern recognition, and be ready to be field-tested. image processing has proven extremely helpful. See Endnotes, page 114 andmines are a constant danger to soldiers during conflict and within a terrain map was desired, accurate physical marking of the mine to civilians years after conflicts cease, causing thousands of locations was considered essential for the mission requirements. L 1 deaths and injuries every year. It has long been thought that Developing a successful solution required a complete understanding landmine detection is an appropriate application for robotics because of the end-user’s goals and requirements. This was accomplished with it is a dull, dirty and dangerous task.2,3 The reality, however, has been over two years of dialogue with MANSCEN and the U.S. Army Engineer that the critical nature of the task demands a reliability and perfor- School to develop and refine the mission requirements. Furthermore, mance that most robots have not been able to provide.4 On the one hand, numerous conversations with the Night Vision and Electronic Sensor many autonomous strategies rely on assumptions of accurate global Directorate at Fort Belvoir, Virginia were required to discuss the capa- positioning systems. When GPS is inaccurate or when it is jammed, the bilities and limitations of current sensor technologies. performance of this approach degrades quickly. On the other hand, tele- Previous studies by MANSCEN had shown that real-world missions operated strategies are limited by the fact that the combined demands of would involve limited bandwidth communication, inaccurate terrain Cambodia Pushes Back Mine Clearance by 10 Years navigation, sweep coverage and signal interpretation severely overload data and sporadic availability of GPS. Consequently, task constraints the human operator and can lead to poor performance. handed down from MANSCEN demanded minimal dependence on: In response to the limitations of both autonomous and teleoperated network connectivity (e.g., wireless Ethernet and radio communica- The government of Cambodia announced in late 2007 that its mine clearance efforts would not strategies, we present a mixed-initiative approach that allows the oper- tions); centralized control (e.g., off-board motion planning); GPS; and be completed until at least 2020. Representing one of the world’s most contaminated countries, ator and robotic assets to work together to accomplish a countermine accurate a priori terrain data. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said that predictions made in 2000 for a 10-year window of mission. Researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory, Carnegie Mel- MANSCEN also emphasized the need for reduced operator work- clearance were overly optimistic. lon University, and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San load and training requirements. The military operational requirements Diego have developed a system that combines aerial imagery from an document specified that within the future combat system unit of action, unmanned aerial vehicle with behavior-based autonomous search-and- there would no longer be dedicated engineers focused on the counter- Details or rationale for the extension were not given by Hun Sen at a meeting on Cambodian de- detection capabilities on a ground robot to identify and mark buried mine mission; instead, anyone within the unit of action should be able mining efforts, although the Prime Minister did say that the government expects the budget for landmines both in the physical world and in a digital representation of to task the system. A final requirement was that the robotic system be landmine clearance to increase in coming years. the world. The system’s effectiveness was rigorously evaluated by the able to handle cluttered outdoor environments. Although the robot United States Army Test and Evaluation Command and by the U.S. platforms and sensor suite were important considerations, the goal of Every year, hundreds of Cambodians become casualties to landmines and other explosive remnants Army Maneuver Support Center Futures Center (MANSCEN) at Fort this effort was not focused on a particular robot platform or a particu- Leonard Wood in Missouri. lar countermine sensor; rather, the stated goal was to “provide porta- of war, which still litter the country after decades of conflicts. Demining groups from around ble, re-configurable tactical behaviors to enable teams of small UGVs the world have been collaborating with the government’s own demining agency to clear the country- Mission Requirements [unmanned ground