Revolutionary Crowdfunded Drone Could Destroy All Land Mines in 10 Years

Civilians in previously war-torn countries are still in danger from battles past because of undetonated land mines hiding underground.

Moving and defusing land mines has always been expensive and time-consuming – but not anymore thanks to a Kickstarter-backed drone.

Massoud Hassani started a crowdfunding campaign for the Mine Kafon Drone: an unmanned flying robot that uses GPS tracking and 3D-scanning to map, detect, and detonate land mines in the ground.

Though their goal was originally set for $77,000, the flood of donations pushed them up to $173,000. For every €17 donated, contributors can sponsor 7,500 meters of mine detection.

The drone has been hailed as a revolutionary piece of technology because of how it is 20 times faster and 200 times cheaper than current methods like animals and de-miners.

There are still over 100 million land mines that injure at least 10 civilians a day in countries like Angola, Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Colombia. Using current technologies, clearing or even detecting all land mines across the entire world would take over 1,100 years.

With the Mine Kafon Drone, it could take less than 10 years.

Thanks to the crowdfunding campaign, the drone is entering into a new pilot study testing weather conditions and different environments. Once more data’s been gathered, the drone will be presented to the UN for validation and then go into mass production.