Towards landmine detection using artificial vision

One of the main needs for the humanitarian demining procedures in Colombia and in the whole world is to find complementary sensing methods for the metal detectors. This paper presents a study whose main goal is the development of a complementary sensor for a metal detector, based on the analysis of images taken by an on-board camera. The images are processed by developing texture and color analysis of different types of surfaces, composed mainly by grass or small rocks. Based on the color and texture analysis, this paper shows that it is possible to determine the presence of a non-metallic landmine within the image. This is achieved by finding the image regions whose texture features variations and color compositions are considered to be anomalous. It is thought that the texture variations over the image are an indicator that the surface has been intentionally modified. This image processing strategy is being integrated on the robot 'Ursula', designed at Universidad Javeriana in Colombia.