Mine Detection Using HSI From UAV/UGV: A Brief Overview of Possible Direct and Indirect Approaches

Recent events in Ukraine have shown that the humble landmine still represents a formidable obstacle to maneuver warfare. Even after a conflict ends, these indiscriminate weapons continue to do harm to the civilian population. Different techniques to detect landmines exist, but few are passive, stand- off, automated and/or efficient. The superior discrimination capabilities of hyperspectral imaging have the potential to identify, characterize, or quantify target objects in a scene, as each material has unique reflective characteristics in the ultraviolet (UV), visible (VIS), near-infrared (NIR), and shortwave infrared (SWIR) parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Furthermore, thermal and soil anomalies can be captured in the longwave (LWIR) – and to a lesser extent, the midwave (MWIR) – infrared. In this paper we briefly describe the possible use of hyperspectral imagers, mounted on a UAV or UGV, to detect landmines.