Technology Transfer Bottlenecks and Lessons Learned in Humanitarian DeminingEU-funded Research: Analysis & Results from the EC DELVE Project

C. Bruschini,1, ∗ H. Sahli,2 L. Van Kempen,2 R. Schleijpen,3 and E. den Breejen3

1CBR Scientific Consulting, Lausanne, Switzerland2Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Department of Electronics and Informatics, Brussels, Belgium

3TNO Defence, Security and Safety, The Hague, The Netherlands(Dated: May 23, 2008)

The EC DELVE Support Action (www.delve.vub.ac.be) [1] has analyzed the bottlenecks in thetransfer of Humanitarian Demining (HD) technology from technology development to the use in thefield, basing itself on the assessment of the European HD Research and Technology Development(RTD) situation from early 1990 until 2006. The developments in HD during the last 10 yearsunderline the fact that in a number of cases demining related developments have been terminatedor at least put on hold. A number of lessons learned were drawn, bottlenecks identified and broadlyclassified as either Confidence, Cost, or Communication related. The study also showed that thefunding provided by the European Commission (EC) has led directly to the creation of an extensiveportfolio of HD technology development projects. However, the range of instruments available to theEC to finance the necessary R&D was limited to pre-competitive research. The EC had no tools orprograms to fund actual product development. The corresponding consequences are detailed in thestudy. The separation of the Mine Action and RTD funding streams in the EC did also negativelyaffect the take-up of new technologies. As a main conclusion, creating coherence between: (1) theEC policy based on political decisions, (2) RTD, testing and industrialization of equipment, and(3) timely deployment, requires a new way of coordinated thinking: “end-to-end planning” has tobe supported by a well organized and coordinated organizational structure involving different DGs(Directorate General) and even extending beyond the EU. This was not the case for Mine Action.

I. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

The EC DELVE Support Action has analyzed the bot-tlenecks in the transfer of Humanitarian Demining (HD)technology from technology development to the use inthe field, and drawn some lessons learned, basing itself onthe assessment of the European Humanitarian DeminingRTD (Research and Technology Development) situationfrom early 1990 until 2006. The situation at Europeanlevel was analyzed with emphasis on activities sponsoredby the EC (European Commission). Moreover, four Eu-ropean countries (B, D, NL and UK) were selected, to-gether with Japan, with emphasis on national activities.

The original project objectives have been defined un-der the assumption that DELVE would be a project inparallel to a number of projects for the development ofHumanitarian Demining technology under the 2004 callin the Information Society Technologies (IST) program,within the 6th EU Framework Program for Research andTechnological Development (FP6) [2]. The overall goalwas to generate synergy between these projects and na-tional programs in the various countries in Europe. Theunexpected outcome of the evaluation of the proposalsfor this call, was that there would be no projects in FP6specifically aiming at technology for Humanitarian Dem-ining. From the assessment of the European R&D sit-uation conducted during the first year of the DELVEproject, it also became clear that the national research

∗Electronic address: Claudio.Bruschini@epfl.ch

activities on technology for Humanitarian Demining werestrongly decreasing in size. For these reasons the oppor-tunities for synergy as anticipated in the original DELVEwork plan did no longer exist and the original goals couldonly be pursued to a very limited extent. From the newperspective the focus shifted towards the modified objec-tives detailed in Section II C.

II. WORK PERFORMED

A. Approach used

The study team have taken a number of approachesin assessing the analysis of the Humanitarian DeminingR&D situation. The team started from the existing bodyof literature and contacts accumulated from the extensiveparticipation to European and national R&D programsin the past decade [3], complemented where necessarywith targeted literature surveys (documents, databases,and internet search). A number of direct contacts andwhere appropriate specific interviews were used for theselected countries, both to compile the detailed descrip-tions of the most important national activities and tocomplement our analysis. Representative events, organi-zations and projects were selected rather than seeking tobe exhaustive.

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FIG. 1: United Kingdom RTD Activities Timeline

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B. First phase

In the first phase of the project we identified the ma-jor stakeholders in Humanitarian Demining RTD. Thisallowed us to analyze country per country the actualR&D situation. Starting from the results of the EU-DEM2 project [3] we reviewed the overview of the generalOrganizational aspects in some selected European coun-tries as well as at the European Union (EU) level. Thisanalysis led to the unexpected result that many of theR&D programs have ended in the period 2003–2005. Theoriginal project goal of generating synergy was thereforeno longer achievable.

C. Second phase

The second phase of the project focused on a set ofmodified objectives. This paper will deal in particularwith the results related to objectives 2 and 3 (see below),since the analysis of the decline of R&D project fundingand the corresponding lessons learned are considered tobe of interest for a broader audience outside Europe.

– Objective 2) Detailed summary of the ending of theR&D project funding in Europe and a thoroughanalysis of the reasons why this has happened.

During the study a large set of data was collected onHD R&D projects in Europe both on EC level andon a national level for the selected countries (Bel-gium, Germany, Netherlands and the United King-dom). The results of these HD R&D projects werealso analyzed. Furthermore, a number of R&Dprojects and project clusters were selected for moredetailed analysis. Data on HD R&D in Japan wascollected for comparison. This objective resultedin DELVE Report T4.1-D4.1 “Humanitarian Dem-ining R&D project funding in Europe” [4].

– Objective 3) Analysis of the lessons learned whichseeks to apply the results of the analysis prospec-tively to future R&D projects in the broad field ofICT for risk/crisis management, and provide usefulsupport in defining the ToR (Terms of Reference)for Risk and Crisis management for FP7.

Based on the case studies on European R&D (in-cluding discussions with researchers and programand project managers, and including informationfrom representatives from NGOs and Mine ActionCenters) a number of lessons learned have been de-fined in support of future programs. These lessonslearned cover the area of R&D for HumanitarianDemining in general. Some lessons learned are lessspecific to Humanitarian Demining but are morerelated to the structuring of R&D projects in theEC framework programs. This objective resultedin DELVE Report T4.2-D4.2 “Humanitarian Dem-ining R&D - Lessons learned” [5].

III. ACHIEVED RESULTS

A. Collection of data

During the study we did collect an enormous amountof data which has been organized in a database and madeavailable for access via the DELVE website [1]. Thedata were collected among others through participationat conferences, participation in meetings of Humanitar-ian Demining co-ordination groups (ITEP, GICHD), aswell as during actual participation in field test in Asia,Africa and South Eastern Europe. Moreover we did an-alyze historical data. Pulling together major events andresearch projects in one timeline illustrates the evolutionover time and the relation between events and R&D.

An example is given in Fig. 1 for the situation in theUK: the top half contains in particular important po-litical events, decisions and conferences, as well as keydates in the development of the commercial ERA GPRsystems (relevant to the gap to market case study, Sec-tion VI). The bottom half contains in the centre indica-tions on R&D projects, in particular those which eventu-ally led to the MINEHOUND system (again of relevancefor the gap to market case study), the DFID procurementcall of 1999, indications on some military projects (fromthe early Falkland Islands work to MCMC and DCMC),and data collection and field trials (bottom, mainly thePHMD and MINETECT/ MINEHOUND dual sensorsystems).

To support our findings, we have carried out a bib-liometric study in order to analyze how the key R&Dtopics related to demining research evolved during thepast 10 year, using as reference the yearly SPIE confer-ence on “Detection and Remediation of Mines and Mine-like Targets”. It is acknowledged that this conference islargely US oriented, heavily influenced by defense spon-sored work, and partially suffering from a lack of end-userinput. However, this event was the only one which ran(and still runs) yearly since 1995 consistently, greatly fa-cilitating comparisons and the analysis of trends, withmost results being applicable as well to demining R&Din Europe. Figure 2 provides an idea of the evolutionof the total number of published papers (conference pro-ceedings) over time, where one can notice the decline ofthe R&D activities on landmine detection and remedi-ation starting in the year 2004. The number of papersin the program for 2008 is 57. Note that reporting atconferences usually has some delay after the finalizationof the corresponding research activities. This means thatthe actual decay in HD R&D may have started some timebefore the decay in the number of publications.

Concerning the key R&D topics themselves, when plot-ting the number of papers subdivided by subject category(radar, IR, Trace, Bulk, etc.) and looking at the evolu-tion of the single categories over time (see Ref. [4] fordetails), one can conclude that:

– There has always been an important data process-

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FIG. 2: Total number of SPIE conference publications peryear.

ing, sensor fusion and radar component (the threetogether accounting in certain years for nearly halfof all the publications);

– The interest in soil/environmental studies wassmall at the beginning and has clearly increasedover the years;

– The amount of radar oriented publications de-creased over the years;

– Infrared based detection showed several peaks overthe years and then regressed strongly;

– Bulk detection is small compared to Trace detec-tion throughout, with the latter becoming more im-portant lately.

B. Identification of key stakeholders

Based on the material available the main stakehold-ers around Humanitarian Demining research have beenidentified. Figure 3 illustrates how we structured the keystakeholders and the interactions between them. In gen-eral this structure can be found at the European level butalso at a national level with some minor modifications.

This political arena is probably the most difficult todeal with. Each stakeholder has his own individual mo-tivations and driving factors. Progress in HumanitarianDemining is a common driver for all stakeholders, butcertainly not the only one and sometimes not the mostimportant one. For example when the ministry of edu-cation in a country sponsors a research project on Hu-manitarian Demining technology at a university, the corebusiness for the ministry is still education and not Hu-manitarian Demining.

From the observation that there is not a single anduniform motivation shared between the stakeholders it iseasy to understand that an overall coherent strategy, in-tegrating RTD actors, mine action donors and field prac-titioners (deminers) [6], was never implemented. (Thisintegration has been partly implemented in the case ofalready developed promising technologies, which still re-quire extensive field testing, e.g., via ITEP.). The lack ofsuch an overall and coherent strategy has probably beenthe single most important bottleneck in HumanitarianDemining related R&D.

FIG. 3: Key Players Structure.

This resulted at European level – apart fromthe large EC sponsored effort – in each coun-try basically following a different approach to-wards Humanitarian Demining R&D (frag-mentation of European research scenario).It also resulted in some research topics be-ing quite well covered, such as GPR or multi-sensor data fusion, while others, such as R&Don mechanical equipment or on trace explo-sive detection, which appeared to be an areawith potential for a breakthrough technology,being neglected.

In this political arena, full coherence wouldadmittedly have been very difficult to imple-ment in practice, and incoherence was partlyunavoidable due to the very nature of R&D,the large number of stakeholders involved,and conflicting interests. However, under-standing the motivations, driving factors andinteractions in this arena will help decisionmakers in at least trying to avoid conflictingdecisions. Eventually this should contributeto decreasing the effects of the bottlenecksfor technology introduction which will be dis-cussed in the following.

Still concerning the key stakeholders and their inter-actions, it would also have helped, in particular at Eu-ropean level, if new funding structures for Prototyp-ing/T&E/ Production had been implemented. Such aprocess needs the key decision makers to be “on-board”and well informed, as well as the capability of convinc-ing everybody that significant investments, a long termvision and the will to “carry through” are needed to getsubstantial rewards down the line.

Finally, Industrial/End Users partnership in particularhas often been acknowledged to be essential to speed-up the integration of new developments into deminingoperations (“risk management” on both sides) [7].

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C. HD vs. Military R&D Relationship

Due to the nature of the landmine problem, militaryapproaches and R&D activities can obviously not be ig-nored even if the target scenario is strictly humanitar-ian. We will focus here on the effects of military R&Don the development of demining technology of interestto Humanitarian Demining (“spin-in” to HD). A moreextensive discussion is reported in Ref. [4].

Based on the work performed for military countermineequipment, in the mid-90s there was widespread opti-mism that a breakthrough could be achieved in demi-ning technology. For example, the general opinion wasthat the detection performance could be significantly im-proved by combining different detection techniques, whileat the same time reducing the false alarm rate. Severalnations started large research programs to develop thistype of technology.

Around the year 2000 it became clear that thesetechniques, which might show success for the detectionof large anti-tank mines, were less suitable for anti-personnel mines. This disappointment was in part dueto fundamental physical limitations which blocked tech-nological progress. May be even more important was themisperception of the main problems in demining oper-ations, due to the lack of communication with the endusers. For example, taking the military user as a start-ing point, one assumes well trained users, good logisticssupport, significant budgets, etc. These conditions areclearly different in Humanitarian Demining.

The research into landmine detection techniques didnot completely stop at that point. More incremental im-provements were instead pursued. The perception of theactual end users needs did also improve. This resulted forexample in the development of hand-held mine detectorswhich combine metal detection and ground penetratingradar. In this case the perspective of military use (andsales) of these systems justified the funding.

Development for Humanitarian Demining only wouldnot provide a solid business case, because the expectedmarket is too small for an acceptable return on invest-ment. This was well illustrated by a case study by Newn-ham and Daniels [8], where the authors argued that thecost of a relatively simple improvement of a metal detec-tor could not be covered by the total market for Human-itarian Demining, because the sales numbers are so smallthat this would lead to unacceptable price increases.

D. Identification of bottlenecks in technologytransfer

The bottlenecks in the transfer of technology fromtechnology development to the use in the field were cat-egorized as either (i) Confidence, (ii) Cost, or (iii) Com-munication related (see Fig. 4).

FIG. 4: “Confidence-Cost-Communication” Gap-to-marketModel.

IV. TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERBOTTLENECKS AND POTENTIAL REMEDIES

Two of the main products of DELVE: (i) the collectionof the lessons learned, and (ii) the analysis of the situ-ation for Environmental Risk Management, have beenprepared in terms of the analysis of the bottlenecks ofthe Humanitarian Demining RTD activities over the pastyears. The main outcome is summarized in the sectionsbelow, including possible remedies. The analysis of suc-cess factors in a number of case studies of technology de-velopment projects contributed to the definition of thesepotential remedies.

A. Confidence related issues

Building end-user confidence in technology

Confidence in new technology has to be built up. Tech-nology demonstrated only in controlled test environmentsis not very convincing, although tests under such condi-tions are necessary and can be part of the confidencebuilding process.

Confidence is however not always based on scientifi-cally proven data. During the EUDEM2-SCOT 2003 con-ference [9] first results were presented on rigorous testingof well accepted HD techniques – metal detectors andprodders – which showed much less than 100% detectionrates. New technologies with similar non-perfect test re-sults will not be accepted for field use, and perhaps noteven fully tried out in practice, which illustrates thatconfidence is essential for the end user.

Possible remedy: Rather than trying to replace tech-nology currently in use one should try to operate in par-allel and show the benefits of the new technology to theuser. This is for example done by several developersof hand-held multi-sensor systems (MINEHOUND andHSTAMIDS).

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B. Cost related issues

Cost of product development/Lack of financial continuity

Many of the projects aimed at the development of dem-ining technology resulted in a demonstration of a proof ofconcept or a demonstration system (some did not evenreach this level). Further product development, whichis well-known to often cost much more than the initialdemonstration or proof of concept stage, was hardly eversponsored.

This finance gap (“death valley”) between R&D andfield-ready technologies has been well-known over theyears, and was already specifically discussed at EC levelin 1997, and possibly even earlier. However, due to theEC R&D funding constraints (pre-competitive R&D onlyas a consequence of the laws on competition – supportcannot be given to turn a working prototype into a com-mercial production item), it was in practice impossibleto overcome this at EC level.

Possible remedies: In retrospective it might havehelped to find ways to select a few systems and carrythem through the full development cycle, similarly towhat is done in certain military procurement processes.The concept of a supra-national Equipment ProcurementAgency, acquiring, organizing and maintaining a centralpool of equipment (technical toolbox), which could becalled upon by the deminers following e.g., a leasing for-mula, was also discussed as the basis of a solution tomeet the market requirements. This type of agency didhowever never see the light.

Absence of a commercial market

It has become clear in the past years that the mar-ket for Humanitarian Demining sensing technologies andsystems is nowhere as large as initially assumed. Thisis coupled to “the uncertainty of the prospective salesvolume” [8] (which can depend heavily on unpredictablepolitical priorities) and to “the extensive and expensivetrials required to prove the performance achieved andthe very real risk that these trials will fail to confirm theoriginal expectations of the user (deminer) community”.

Possible remedies: Some possible strategies have al-ready been presented in the previous section. “Spin-offs”from HD to other markets (i.e., search for non-deminingapplications for the technologies being developed) werealso considered. The most important ones seem nowa-days to be security and military demining.

Level of cost trade-off

The level at which financial decisions are made is ofkey importance. At local level the decisions will be dif-ferent than at national or even international level. Forexample, contracts for demining operations tend to be

too small, and possibly non-renewable, to justify signif-icant investment in technical equipment by a deminingorganization.

Possible remedies: One possible strategy consists incombining budgets at a sufficiently high level (interna-tional) to allow the development and fielding of technol-ogy. The trade-off should then be made between the costof the technology and the savings made in operations dueto higher demining productivity. In other words, the costof research on demining in technology should be com-pared to the potential cost reduction of the use of thistechnology worldwide. Donors for technology researchand donors for actual demining are usually not the same;this cost-benefit analysis is therefore hardly ever made.

At end user level, larger demining projects should besupported or, if not possible, other methods devised toensure continuity of operations, in order to enable longterm investment in technology.

C. Communication related issues

Basic understanding of the problem and clear problemoverview

It might seem obvious that a problem has to be welldescribed and understood before it can be tackled, butthis was not the case at the beginning for Humanitar-ian Demining. Reasons are the lack of communicationbetween the end users and the technology developers,the fact that the demining one is still a relatively youngindustry, and the initial difficulty of the demining com-munity in coming up with clear scenario definitions.

Parameters such as equipment robustness, ease of use,acceptable system cost and operating costs, and operatortraining level, have not always been considered in theR&D projects from the very beginning.

Possible remedy: To increase the understanding of therequirements it is sometimes very useful to have a set ofscenarios. These scenarios should be defined with stronginput from demining organizations and also agreed bythem. The scenarios should provide a description of theoperational concept of the application of the techniqueor technology by the user. Based on the scenarios andoperational concept description the actual requirementscan be derived taking into account both the problems andthe boundary conditions imposed by the use in the fieldand the technical limitations for the specific technologicalsolution. It is therefore obvious that the definition oftechnical requirements requires adequate communicationbetween end-users and technology developers.

Exchange on technical topics at the right level betweenresearchers and deminers

A critical factor in the process of defining the prod-uct goal in a technology development process is that the

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technical representative of the Humanitarian Deminingorganization is able to understand the potential of thetechnique and that at the same time the researcher canunderstand the operational requirements.

Possible remedy: Visits to demining operations anddiscussions with technical representatives from Human-itarian Demining organizations during conferences likeEUDEM2-SCOT [9], or field visits, or courses reservedfor scientists and technicians will facilitate this process.

Communication to stakeholders

Competing projects: The presence of similar projectsis part of a natural process in R&D, at least during theinitial development stages, but can be difficult to explainto the end users and the general public in high visibilitydomains such as Humanitarian Demining, and thereforebe subject to public pressure and criticism.

Basic research versus Product development: It is a factthat the lead times of some R&D sensing technologiescan be very long (GPR, trace explosive detection, smartmetal detector). It might be tempting to announce tech-nical breakthroughs, but this should be done with greatcare. Overexposure of immature technology and unreal-istic claims and promises for future effectiveness based oninitial experiments have done a lot of harm in the com-munication between the research community and the endusers.

Possible remedy: The maturity of the developmentshould always be clearly stated. A common method forindicating the maturity of technology is the TechnologyReadiness Level (TRL) scale [10].

Communication between R&D projects (past and present)

Competing projects: It is acknowledged that increas-ing the communication between competing projects isdifficult, and not only when there are clear commercialinterests. Ways should nevertheless be found to makea project’s results more visible. Lack of communicationbetween projects in high visibility domains such as Hu-manitarian Demining can be difficult to understand forthe end users and the general public.

Possible remedy: Mandatory publishing of short sum-maries (and possibly of the main results), or well struc-tured and content-rich websites. Encourage participa-tion and organization at selected events, e.g., “cluster”meetings, or networking opportunities such as the NordicDemining Research Forum. Ideally there should also bea clear and effective knowledge transfer between a start-ing project and those in the same domain having alreadycompleted.

V. LESSONS LEARNED

In addition to the lessons learned related to the specificbottlenecks analyzed so far, some more general lessonslearned have also been extracted, as listed below. Al-though they are written as an advice to the EC, theyhave a more general validity.

A. Cost

Realistic assessment of all costs

Development and trials costs, risks, timescales and re-turn on investment are not always taken into analysisby consortia bidding for EC co-funded R&D projects.It was suggested (Ref. [5] and references therein) thatany consortium should “present a proper justification oftheir proposal”, including a realistic assessment of thepreviously mentioned factors, before receiving EC sup-port. “These justifications should then be evaluated byrelevant experts in much more depth than current prac-tice allows. As the result of such evaluation there willoften be the need for the proposal to be revised – andthe current practices need to be amended to permit suchiteration.”

Relative benefits of new technology

Assessing the real benefits of a new technology shouldbe done by means of appropriate tools, such as cost-effectiveness analysis. Such an assessment would in-volve an evaluation on how Humanitarian Demining con-tributes to higher economic or political goals in terms of(growth of) economic activities or political stability in aregion. Expressing the results of this evaluation in finan-cial terms would then help to judge the justification ofinvestment on demining technology.

B. Test & Evaluation

Test and Evaluation is discusses in detail in Ref. [5].Here we will only emphasize that testing requires signif-icant engineering competence and advance planning; itshould not be considered as something to be done quicklytowards the end of a project. There is a need to testthe fundamental principles of new technologies as wellas their implementation and suitability to form part ofa Humanitarian Demining system for use in the field.Particular attention needs also to be paid to the carefuldesign of realistic and meaningful assessment of equip-ment, especially when it uses new principles. Finally, theindependence of testing must be guaranteed when theend-user is a member of the project consortium.

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ITEP, the International Test and Evaluation Program,played an important role in supporting Test and Evalua-tion activities. Over the lifetime of ITEP since the year2000 many common projects have been successfully com-pleted. The corresponding results (and reports) are pub-lished on the website (www.itep.ws). Although not allthe projects have been reported in the same level of de-tail, the ITEP website contains a large set of good qualitytest reports. Notable ITEP results include Standardiza-tion activities (e.g., of the evaluation of Metal Detectors),mechanical demining tests, and the evaluation of handheld GPR-MD sensors.

C. Contributions at European Level - Directresults and Spin-offs to other domains

The full analysis of the situation at the European levelas a whole, with particular attention to the EC sponsoredprojects, is reported in Ref. [5]. In fairness to the effortsmade during the last 10 years we summarize in Table I afew examples of the main “spin-offs” which have resultedfrom the EC co-funded projects. The most importantones seem to be in security, military demining andenvironmental risk management.

VI. GAP TO MARKET - SUCCESS CASESTUDIES

Notwithstanding the previously illustrated bottle-necks, in some cases it has indeed been possible to bridge,at least partially, the gap to market, bringing new or im-proved technology all the way to the end users. Fourselected case studies were analyzed in order to identifythe enabling factors and the circumstances which actu-ally made this happen [4]. We will here illustrate just onecase, the UK – MINEHOUND dual sensor system.

A. Description

The MINEHOUND dual sensor detector combinesground penetrating radar (GPR) and a pulsed metal de-tector to reduce the false alarm rate normally encoun-tered by metal detectors. This is expected to result inimproved productivity of mine clearing operations. Theoutput to the operator from both the metal detector andGPR is by means of audio signals.

MINEHOUND is based on a custom-designed GPRfrom ERA Technology Ltd (UK) and on the pulse induc-tion MD-Type VMH3 from Vallon GmbH (Germany); itis now in production and available from Vallon (MINE-HOUND VMR2). The original development (calledMINETECT) was developed under the sponsorship of theUK Department for International Development (DFID)and MINEHOUND was additionally supported by theGerman Foreign Ministry [11].

According to the manufacturer, trials in live minefieldsshow that the FAR can be reduced by a factor of betweentwo and seven times with respect to a standalone MD,and the GPR also detects zero or minimum metal minesthat are difficult for the MD. Full details are reported forexample in Ref. [11], and references contained therein.

A number of trials have been completed over the years,including field trials in real minefields in collaborationwith several NGOs, alongside the currently used MD andunder ITEP invigilation [12].

B. Success factors

– A number of funding sources have been exploitedover the years (including related GPR develop-ments), both civil and military (European Commis-sion within the DREAM and INFIELD projects forERA and the HOPE project for Vallon, DFID, UKMoD, the German Foreign Ministry, etc.).

– Constant focus and dedication (continuity).– Early GPR experience (both as ERA in the Falk-

land Islands project, 1984-1986, and separately oncommercial applications).

– ERA kept visible and continued to communicateand disseminate information throughout.

– Operational experience with GPR products (par-allel commercial developments and applicationline[15], e.g., for civil engineering applications – seealso the UK timeline).

– Clear vision of end user requirements and accep-tance and potential market (maybe not from thebeginning but earlier than others).

– Abandoned an imaging-based approach, targetingthe development of a “simple” acoustic interface.

– Commercial awareness (internal ERA investments)and focus on delivering a commercial product.

VII. CONCLUSION

In summary, this project has analyzed the evolution ofresearch and development efforts in the field of technol-ogy for Humanitarian Demining in Europe both at theEC level and at national levels. Based on this analysisa number of bottlenecks for the transfer of technologyfrom the research to the end user were identified andpotential remedies were suggested. Lessons learned andrecommendations were established for the benefit of sim-ilar future research programs, primarily as an advice tothe EC but with a wider application range.

A. Detailed findings

What emerged from the HD R&D analysis is that:

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TABLE I: Spin-offs of EC co-funded RTD projects to other domains.

R&D, support activity Project (example) Direct results Spin-offs

Airborne surveys DG DEV Airborne Mine-field Detection PilotProject, ARC, SMART

Demonstrator systems, flightcampaigns Demonstration oftheir cost/benefit potential

Environmental risk management appli-cations (STREAM project). EnhancedCamcopter UAV (enhanced product).Coupling of airborne monitoring to GIS(border patrol applications)

Bulk explosive detection MINESEYE Explosive detection system (airport se-curity, prototype)

Data fusion GEODE, DREAM, LO-TUS, DEMAND

Improved data fusion systems Improved data fusion systems for otherapplications

Data taking MINETEST, MINESIGN,MSMS

Signature DBs New test facili-ties Surrogate mines

Fundamental Research

GIS DG DEV MINEDEMON,ISIS, JRC activities

GIS for SE Europe Environmental risk management appli-cations

GPR INFIELD, HOPE, DEM-INE, DEMAND

Improved GPR (and GPR ar-ray) design

Enhanced understanding of multi-sensor probes. Enhanced understand-ing of GPR physics. Improved GPR(for civil engineering). Through-the-wall UWB radar.

Metal detection (EMI) PICE, HOPE, MINES-EYE

Improved MD (Schiebel AT-MID, product)

Enhanced metal detectors in thefield. Enhanced understanding of EMIphysics (e.g., for NdT applications).Inversion models (for imaging applica-tions).

MD array LOTUS Forster MD array (product) Enhanced understanding of EMIphysics (e.g., for NdT applications).Inversion models (for imaging applica-tions).

MD+GPR INFIELD, HOPE Demonstrators Handheld multi-sensor systems cur-rently field tested (MINEHOUND)

Other ICT TELEDIMOS Environmental risk management appli-cations

Trace explosive detec-tion

BIOSENS BIOSENS system Test cam-paigns

Environmental risk management appli-cations. Explosive and drug detectionsystem (BIOSENS, product). Coun-terterrorism. Enhanced understandingof explosive fate & transport.

– Humanitarian Demining activities started inearnest during the late 80s-early 90s and soon madethe headlines thereafter. As one of the conse-quences important RTD efforts were started, in-

cluding a strong EC R&D civilian program.

– Different countries replied in very different ways(research fragmentation at the European and na-tional level – fragmentation aspects are discussed

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in Ref. [5]).– In a number of cases there has been little interac-

tion between decision makers, R&D organizationsand/or end users.

– As with many other “new” topics all involved ac-tors had to climb their share of the learning curve,new structures and ways of collaborating had to beinvented (e.g., International Test and EvaluationProgram, ITEP), with mixed success.

– Examples of coordinated end-to-end planning bycreating coherence between (1) policy, based on po-litical decision, (2) RTD, testing and production ofequipment, and (3) timely deployment, supportedby a well organized and coordinated organizationalstructure, showed effectiveness in bridging the gapbetween R&D and Deployment.

– From the review of the EC R&D projects it ap-peared that, at the current funding/project size,the typical timeframe of 2-3 years is very short forR&D projects, which include a requirements phase,a specification phase, development and integration,demonstrator building, laboratory testing and ini-tial field tests by end users, to be effective. Cur-rently the timeframe for R&D is not sufficientlysynchronized with the timeframe of the Humani-tarian Action funding/operation.

– At the Humanitarian Demining sensing relatedR&D level, the most notable developments whichhave taken place during the past 10 years are: “(i)an increased understanding of the problem, (ii) ashift from a focus on the individual sensor as a so-lution towards the individual sensor as part of aset of tools, (iii) an increased emphasis on area re-duction and the detection of minefield indicatorsrather than individual mines, (iv) an increased em-phasis on trace explosive detection, (v) the gainingof importance of systematic test and evaluation (inparticular via the International Test and Evalua-tion Program, ITEP) [11].”

– Although a host of physical principles havebeen investigated to detect landmines, onlyelectromagnetic-based technologies, in particularenhanced metal detectors and ground penetratingradars, have seen significant advances and are be-ing introduced into the field. Test results consis-tently confirm that some of these technologies canindeed increase the productivity of HumanitarianDemining, while at least maintaining the currenthigh levels of safety. Several development groupshave shown this is the case for the combination ofa metal detector with ground penetrating radar.

– Well known demonstrator systems developed usingEarth Observation techniques (e.g., the DG Devel-opment Pilot project: Airborne Minefield Detec-tion in Mozambique, the DG IST ARC & SMARTprojects) have been sufficiently demonstrated, to-gether with their cost/benefit potential; however,their take-up by end users has not been successful.

– Information Technology, including GIS, has beendemonstrated in several European projects (e.g.,the DG IST ISIS “Intelligent Systems for Hu-manitarian Geo-Infrastructure” project, and theDG Development MINEDEMON “Mine DatabaseDemonstrator” project), as well as nationalprojects (RMA-Belgium Paradis). However, thedeployment of such systems for field use hasbeen achieved by the GICHD with its InformationManagement System for Mine Action (IMSMA),and by the Swedish EOD and Demining Centre(SWEDEC) with its EOD IS system, using the end-to-end planning approach mentioned above.

– At the R&D level the subject of Humanitar-ian Demining started to lose importance as fromaround 2004, being mostly taken over by securityrelated issues and environmental risk managementas a whole. The current reduction of the EU Hu-manitarian Demining research program and its in-corporation into the wider “Improving Risk Man-agement” strategic objective, which was foreseenas a way of generating synergies with other typesof responses to humanitarian crises management,where technologies such as Information Manage-ment, Geographical Information Management andEarth Observation are more likely to be used in a“System Approach”, did not generate the expectedsynergies.

– Military R&D efforts are still ongoing, although re-focused around specific topics, and likely to con-tinue for the foreseeable future.

– On the civilian front some individual, mostly aca-demic efforts are still ongoing at national level(with a notable exception such as the IAEA TMs),whereas large concerted projects are ending – likefor European projects – and might not be contin-ued.

– Mine Action funding is mostly leveling off (also atthe EC level), but not decreasing and still substan-tial (Ref. [13], pp. 64-72).

B. Main Conclusions

The study showed that the funding provided by theEuropean Commission has led directly to the creationof an extensive portfolio of HD technology developmentprojects. However, the range of instruments available tothe EC to finance the necessary R&D was limited, un-til the FP7 program, to pre-competitive research. TheEC had no tools or programs to fund actual product de-velopment. The corresponding consequences have beensketched above and are fully detailed in the study [4, 5].The separation of the Mine Action and RTD fundingstreams in the EC did also negatively affect the take-upof new technologies (see also Ref. [14]).

Notwithstanding the previously illustrated limitations,in some cases it has indeed been possible to bridge, at

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least partially, the gap to market. Four selected casestudies, of which only one was illustrated here, were ana-lyzed in order to identify the enabling factors and the cir-cumstances which actually made this happen [4]. Muchcould be obtained from putting the corresponding lessonslearned in practice, in particular looking in-depth at thecase studies that came closer to the field and eventuallyto the market.

As a main conclusion, creating coherence between: (1)the EC policy based on political decisions, (2) RTD, test-ing and industrialization of equipment, and (3) timelydeployment, requires a new way of coordinated think-ing: “end-to-end planning” has to be supported by awell organized and coordinated organizational structureinvolving different DGs (Directorate General) and evenextending beyond the EU. This was not the case for MineAction.

C. Final remark

We would like to wrap up this paper with the finalparagraph from Ref. [11], which we believe still retainsall its validity: “The landmine problem is far from solved

and landmine detection and area reduction are still themost important elements in the Humanitarian Deminingequation. Research and development of practical detec-tion technologies and systems that are appropriate forHumanitarian Demining, duly taking into account thelessons learned and the developments outlined in thissection [Section 12 of Ref [11]], continues therefore torepresent one of the most significant contributions to thesolution of the landmine problem.”

Acknowledgments

The DELVE project (DELVE website) was spon-sored by the European Commission under contractFP6 IST 2511 779.

Disclaimer

This publication reflects only the authors’ views. TheEuropean Community is not liable for any use that maybe made of the information contained herein.

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R&D project funding in Europe”, DELVE DeliverableD4.1, v2.2.0, May 2007, 85 pp.

[5] DELVE CONSORTIUM, “Humanitarian DeminingR&D Lessons Learned”, DELVE Deliverable D4.2,v2.3.0, May 2007, 60 pp.

[6] R. Gasser, “EC research and the deployment gap”, pre-sentation at the EUDEM2 Final Workshop, 5/10/2004,Brussels,

[7] EUDEM2 PROJECT, “Present and Future of Human-itarian Demining Research”, Concertation meeting forResearch and Technological Development projects fromthe 5th Framework Programme, DG INFSO-C5, Brus-sels, 24/3/2003,

[8] P. Newnham, D. Daniels, “Market for advanced humani-tarian mine detectors”, Detection and Remediation Tech-nologies for Mines and Minelike Targets VI, Proc. SPIE4394, 1213-1224 (2001).

[9] EUDEM2-SCOT 2003, International Conference on Re-

quirements and Technologies for the Detection, Removaland Neutralization of Landmines and UXO, ConferenceProceedings, 15-18 Sept. 2003, Brussels, Belgium.

[10] J.C. Mankins, “Technology Readiness Levels: A WhitePaper”, NASA, 1995,

[11] C. Bruschini, H. Sahli, A. Carruthers, GENEVA INTER-NATIONAL CENTRE FOR HUMANITARIAN DEMI-NING, “Guidebook on Detection Technologies and Sys-tems for Humanitarian Demining”, ISBN 2-88487-045-8,Geneva (2006). Also Geneva International Centre for Hu-manitarian Demining

[12] Era Technology LTD, “MINEHOUND trials 2005-2006,Summary report”, October 2006,

[13] Landmine Monitor Editorial Board, Landmine Monitor2006, Executive Summary, Mines Action Canada, July2006, ISBN:0-9738955-1-9,

[14] R. Gasser, R. Keeley, “Global Assessment of EC MinePolicy and Actions 2002-2004”, Framework Contract:EUROPEAID/116548/C/SV, LOT Number 4 Missionnumber 2004/89069 - Version 2, March 2005.

[15] ERA was selling GPR systems from about 1989 onwards.