Minesweepers is an international robotic competition on humanitarian demining that aims at motivating researchers and developers to work on innovative solutions for this serious problem.
Detection and removal of landmines is, at the present time, a serious problem of political, economic, environmental, and humanitarian dimensions in many countries around the world.
The simplicity and cost-effectiveness of mines are major factors in explaining the widespread use of mines throughout the numerous countries that are now faced with dealing with landmine & explosive remnants of war (ERW) contamination problems. These landmines make no distinction between friend or enemy, children or animals. The civilian-purpose demining or humanitarian demining aims at finding and removing abandoned landmines without any hazard to the environment. While basic landmine detection and neutralizing techniques remain almost the same, landmine technology has improved dramatically.
Moreover, the humanitarian demining activities carried out to remove landmines and unexploded ordnances from the vast contaminated areas are not on the same level as the problem. More efficient ways to detect and locate landmines and UXOs are needed. This is one of the main objectives of the Minesweepers competition.
One of the main objectives of Minesweepers is to provide real hands-on experience for the competitors to discover the robotics world, explore the new technologies and meet different teams around the world through the competition journey which starts from designing a robot, making technical report, joining the field to compete with many other teams from different cultures and ages, also having educational discussions with professional judges and technical support team.
The journey doesn’t end with winning Minesweepers; it continues with the participants until they can achieve their own goals. That journey aims for one goal,l which is changing the world into a landmine-free one through the teams’ experience, which can make the participants from all categories (academia, juniors, and industry) capable of being leaders at the different robotics industries to create and implement innovative technological solutions for the benefit of humanity.
