Mine clearance firm actively seeking orders
A WOLVERHAMPTON business has launched breakthrough technology which could revolutionise the fight to clear land mines, saving thousands of lives every year.
Mineseeker Operations, based at Wolverhampton Business Airport, has released the first ever 3D images of suspected landmines buried in the ground.
Now, following successful $1m trials in Croatia, it is open for business and actively seeking orders.
The technology fuses ground penetrating radar and high resolution imaging so as to spot the landmines in the ground.
Clearing landmines currently costs $1-3m and thousands of man hours per square kilometre. Mapping the same area using the new system costs just $150,000 and can be completed in an hour.
Mike Kendrick, founder of Mineseeker Operations, said: “Most of the cost of landmine clearance comes in searching for buried landmines. A landmine operator can only clear 35 square metres per day, using a prodder. Once located it is a simple and inexpensive process to remove the landmines. It is the mapping of the mines that takes the time as against the getting rid of them afterwards.
“It has been calculated that using conventional methods it would take 500 years to rid the planet of the estimated 100 million buried landmines at a cost of £50bn. The technology changes all that.”
Kendrick said the firm was now at the point of taking on contracts and is speaking to the authorities in South Africa, Mozambique, Sri Lanka and the Middle East. It had been invited to Angola and a delegation recently visited from Jordan.
Mineseeker Operations is publicly quoted on the Over The Counter market in the US but hopes eventually to launch on Nasdaq.
It is financed using the company’s own resources and through private investment.
