Robots for non-conventional de-mining processes: From remote control to autonomy

This chapter aims to show the results of the perceptual strategy of a global project being developed at Bogota in Colombia by Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and at Toulouse in France by LAAS/CNRS. This cooperation project, funded by the Colombian-French ECOS-NORD program, includes an investigation about mine sensing technologies, path planning and robotic platforms among others.The chapter gives the general context and what are the main challenges when coping with humanitarian demining, presents a method based on the analysis of multisensory fused data to improve the landmine detection and its implementation on an embedded system and presents two robotics demining platforms called URSULA and AMARANTA. These robots have been designed and built as mine hunting platforms to be used in developing countries: so these platforms could be cheap and easy-to-use solutions for humanitarian demining. The robots contain the perceptual capabilities described earlier in this chapter.