Human-in-the-loop issues for demining

The effectiveness and robustness of any landmine detector ultimately depend on its operator. This is especially true for hand-held landmine detectors, since the operator handles both the scanning motion and the interpretation of the data. Therefore, it is important that the human-in-the-loop issues are addressed as an integral part of the detector design, not as an afterthought. Two critical issues that we have identified are the lack of position feedback for the operator and the lack of 2-D map of the detector output. The position feedback will allow the operator to obtain feedback with respect to the sweep rate, detector height and orientation. The position feedback can also be integrated with the detector output to generate a 2-D map for the operator. In addition, the 2-D map enables 2-D image processing techniques, which are more robust and effective than 1-D signal processing techniques.