Mine Detection Vehicle
Humanitarian Demining
The plight of many nations suffering from severe landmine problems, and the threat to U.S. forces engaged in peace and stability operations, led to an emphasis on the development of new technologies for humanitarian demining. The DoD Humanitarian Demining R&D Program is a crucial part of the U.S. initiative to eliminate the landmine threat worldwide. The program improves the safety, efficiency and effectiveness of the demining process. Through new technology development, CERDEC NVESD executes this highly visible and important program for DoD.
The mission of the Humanitarian Demining R&D Program is to develop, demonstrate and transition new technologies for landmine detection, vegetation and mine clearance, and mine neutralization. To accomplish this mission, CERDEC NVESD performs the following functions:
- Invests in new technologies that contribute to the global humanitarian demining effort
- Provides improved, easy to use and affordable technologies
- Maximizes use of rapid prototyping, involving commercial off- the- shelf (COTS) equipment to develop, fabricate and test prototype equipment
- Informs the worldwide humanitarian demining community of program developments
- Supports host nation requested in-country assessments and operational field evaluations of prototype equipment
Annual input from supported nation and non-governmental organizations identifies and prioritizes R&D needs. Based on this input, the program develops and demonstrates new, proven and promising technologies that can be shared internationally. The program actively leverages to and from developments in military countermine and foreign programs. Information is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.humanitariandemining.org/. Since the program began, 46 technologies have been deployed to over 35 countries for evaluation.
