This Wind-Powered Sphere Has Led To A Technology That Could Solve The World’s Landmine Crisis

Long after bloody conflicts come to an end, treaties and ceasefires signed, landmines remain. In many corners of the world, decades after conflicts, locals live under threat of being killed by one of these deadly relics.

Massoud Hassani was raised in Kabul, Afghanistan, where it is thought millions upon millions of undetonated landmines remain, out of sight, but armed. When the fighting between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan ceased, little was done in the impoverished and rural nation to remove them – a costly and dangerous proposition with no guarantee of full eradication.

Now, Hassani is a designer who several years ago released this video to crowdsource funding for his innovation, operating on the same principles as a dandelion or a tumbleweed.

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Unfortunately, this striking and altruistic application of natural design was not to be. Realizing that the object is too heavy to glide and bounce via only wind-power, Hassani soon accepted his creation was more a concept to cultivate awareness of a problem, rather than a solution to it.

But that was before drones.

Now, Massoud has teamed with his brother Mahmoud with a different, but equally ingenious way to solve the world’s landmine problem.

Kickstarter

This striking device is the Mine Kafon Drone, and as stated on the product’s Kickstarter page, the product is “an airborne demining system developed to clear all land mines around the world in less than 10 years.”

More specifically, it uses a 3D mapping system in concert with GPS to scan (quickly – about 20 times faster than existing processes) the landscape in search of landmines. Once one is located, the drone releases a small detonating device on the landmine to detonate it.

Here’s the device in action:

So far, the Hassani’s fundraising has raised almost $200,000.

According to the fundraising page, 100 million landmines across the world kill ten innocent people every day. So let’s hope and help so that this innovator can reach his goal of getting rid of them all in ten years.