Former refugees Massoud and Mahmud Hassani stunned the world three years ago with an invention like a dandelion puffball that sought to rid the world of landmines. Now the Afghan brothers are back with their latest creation: A low-cost drone to detect and destroy mines, which each year claim thousands of lives.
Ridding the world of their childhood horror has become the life work of the Hassanis, who now live in the Netherlands.
In 2013, they won worldwide acclaim for the mine kafon — a giant ball shaped like a dandelion-seed head that rolls around with the wind, its plastic stalks tripping landmines in the process.
Photo: AFP
Inspired by their childhood toys, the kafon — short for kafondan, which in the Hassanis’ native Dari language means “something that explodes” — drew high praise from anti-landmine organizations.
Their latest mine-hunting device combines drone technology, 3D printing and robotics with a metal detector to find and ultimately destroy landmines.
Hinged on six arms with rotors that creates lift, the 4.5kg drone consists of a blue, hard-plastic casing that contains batteries, computer hardware and software and GPS. A robotic arm slung underneath is fitted with pincers that can remotely be opened and closed. The pincers can carry a metal detector or a small explosive charge, which the brothers say can be used to destroy a landmine.
The onboard GPS allows it to plot its course via computer.
Massoud said that the drone works in three stages: mapping, detecting and destroying.
When deployed, a 3D mapping system scans the section that needs to be demined. The mapped area is swept by the drones carrying a metal detector on a pre-programmed path.
“This way the minefield in question can be scanned inch-by-inch,” Massoud said at his workshop in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven.
Finally, the plan is to destroy the mines by using the drone to place a small charge on every mine to detonate them.
“We believe this way mines can be cleared about 20 times faster than what they are now,” Massoud said.
So far the duo have built three working prototypes and have carried out demonstrations for the Dutch military, which said it is willing to help with further testing.
“Clearing minefields is an incredibly time-consuming process,” Major Fred de Vries of the Dutch army’s explosives ordnance disposal unit said.
“We see many possibilities to use drones” to save time to map and detect landmines in a given area, De Vries said.
The key phase would be to carry out field tests in Afghanistan, which the brothers hope to finance by crowd-funding.
If all goes well, the pair believe the drone can be made for as little as 1,000 euros (US$1,100) each.
Other opinions are guarded.
One of them is the Halo Trust, the world’s largest humanitarian mine-clearing organization.
It said that despite having carried out some “small-scale trials with aerial mapping drones,” it did not believe “drones will contribute significantly to the future of mine clearance.”
Drones are of limited use in areas covered with vegetation and in poor weather conditions, the trust said.
And even if the drone did find a landmine “a trained human being will still be required to excavate and destroy it,” the trust said in a statement.
The brothers are using the Kickstarter online crowd-funding platform in the hope of raising 90,000 euros for the final tests.
They want to take it to Afghanistan for testing within the next two months, the first time the brothers would be back in their native country since fleeing the Taliban-ruled Kabul in the late 1990s.
Three years ago a plan to return to Afghanistan to test the mine kafon failed. The “puffball” idea — while praised for its low technology and cheapness — meant the device was at the mercy of the winds and could not cover a minefield systematically to guarantee it was cleared, as humans would.
“The mine kafon invention did a lot to create awareness of landmines,” Massoud said.
“We felt that it was now time to do something even more concrete to destroy landmines,” he said.
Massoud, 32, fled Afghanistan in 1998, followed two years later by Mahmud, 30. After arduous treks through Pakistan and Uzbekistan the brothers made their way to the Netherlands and today hold Dutch citizenship.
Landmines are scattered in 78 countries, and each year kill between 15,000 and 20,000 people and maim countless more, according to UN figures.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number