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Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss demining technology recently developed and under development in the Humanitarian Research and Development (R&D) Program as well as other efforts in the Department of Defense not specifically under the Army's Tactical Countermine Program or the Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) Advanced Technology Demonstration Program.

Although the DoD established the Humanitarian Demining R&D Program to develop equipment and systems specifically for humanitarian demining purposes, some of these items may well assist and can be made available to the troops in Bosnia. The Army's Communications and Electronics Command's Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate developed and demonstrated over 30 prototype items for humanitarian demining in FY 1995. At the direction of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict [ASD(SO/LIC)], the program manager has provided to Army planners in the U.S. and Europe a list of items from the program that could augment current countermine capabilities.

The Humanitarian Demining R&D Program applies available technologies to develop equipment for humanitarian demining and Military Operations Other than War. The program benefits by using technical inputs from: the Tactical Countermine Program and the UXO Advanced Technology Demonstration Program; the United Nations and a number of cooperating countries; and regular consultations with other government agencies, private industry, and operational representatives from the military and non-government organizations. Furthermore, coordination with representatives from the regional commanders indicated an immediate need for short-term, low-technology solutions to the humanitarian demining problem.

This program has emphasized the development of low-risk equipment to improve the efficiency and safety of humanitarian demining operations. Projects were developed that leveraged the technology previous and ongoing countermine programs. The program has focused on determining reliably whether certain land areas are mined or mine-free. As part of this program, the following items were identified to the Army as being available for deployment:

• A Vehicle-Mounted Detection System for on-road and off-route mine detection. This system consists of metal detectors and infrared, ultraviolet, and visible cameras mounted on a remotely-controlled vehicle.

• An explosive foam called LEXFOAM to destroy mines in place.

• A hardening foam that prevents activation of pressure and tension-release mine fuzes and marks individual mine locations.

· Shaped charges that use shock tube initiation and small amounts of explosives.

• A mobile training system that uses multimedia equipment to produce pamphlets, tapes, posters, and imprinted T-shirts to provide mine awareness training to people of the host nation.

• A mine-marking device that attaches to any open-ring handheld mine detector.

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• A Command Communications Video and Light System that consists of a mini-camera which can be mounted onto a helmet or mast with wireless audio and visual links to a remote command post. This system, which allows search without entry into a minefield, provides real-time feedback of what the operator sees from eye level or what can be viewed from a 12-foot high mast.

• Six mine detecting dogs and handlers have successfully completed basic mine detection training and are in theater. Current plans call for this capability to be deployed to Bosnia next week as an Army Military Police asset.

A system to remotely collect vapor samples that are subsequently transported to dogs for detection of explosives. The system, which was developed based on a South African system, consists of three alert dogs, two search dogs, a collection vehicle, a collector back pack, and helicopter-deployable collector boxes. The complete system can deploy after eight to twelve weeks of handler training.

Our current plans call for continuing this fast-track development of humanitarian demining equipment through FY 2001. We will continue to identify systems applicable to countermine operations.

The Explosive Ordnance Disposal in a Low-Intensity Conflict Program, hereafter referred to as EOD/LIC, is another program under the direction of ASD(SO/LIC) developing equipment that can be made available for Bosnia. Program management is provided by the Navy's Office of Special Technology at Fort Washington, MD. Using a rapid prototype approach, the EOD/LIC program demonstrates and develops EOD technology and equipment to support low-intensity conflict and conventional EOD missions. This program has already made or will soon make the following equipment available for Bosnia:

• The mini-flail, which consists of a 36-inch wide, remotely-controlled, self-propelled flail capable of neutralizing antipersonnel land mines and other improvised explosive devices without sustaining significant equipment damage. One of the two flails is currently in Bosnia and the other awaiting transport to Europe. Two improved mini-flails developed by the Humanitarian Demining R&D Program will be made available in the next two months. These improved vehicles can sustain blast pressures from the larger antipersonnel mines.

• A titanium mine detection probe has been developed and over 60 have been deployed to Bosnia with U.S. Special Forces.

• A mine data base developed for the Special Forces that has been enhanced for use in Bosnia. Five-hundred copies of the data base, which is designed to facilitate the training of soldiers and civilians in mine recognition, will be delivered for use in Bosnia next month.

Other active EOD/LIC projects that may have applicability to missions similar to those now being performed in Bosnia are:

• The Special Operations Forces Vehicle Ballistic Protection Project. This is an improved, lightweight system for use on Special Operations Forces land vehicles to protect

against explosive fragmentation and projectiles delivered by 12-pound explosive antitank mines. Two improved steel and composite HMMWV kit designs are scheduled for explosive testing this month. If these tests are successful, kits could be made available by March 1996.

• The Automated Ferrous Locator Project. This is a small, advanced, man-portable ferrous ordnance locator for the detection of unexploded ordnance. This project is scheduled for completion in March 1996.

Emerging technologies that hold promise for future Bosnia-type missions are ground penetrating radar, infrared sensors, robotics and semiautonomous systems, and chemical neutralization techniques. We estimate that in five years or less, radars using improved signal and data processing techniques should be able to detect small antipersonnel mines with a very high level of reliability. Ongoing projects, such as the Imaging Ordnance Locator Project in the EOD/LIC program, are attempting to solve some of the challenges associated with ground penetrating radar technology.

In the next few years, operations should become safer through robotics and semiautonomous systems that will provide for remote detection and removal of mines. Additionally, chemical neutralization techniques should provide a means of entering mine casings and destroying explosive components without detonation. Within five years, the sensitivity of passive and active infrared sensors will mature. These sensors, combined with improved signal and data processing, will be used in airborne, land vehicle mounted, and handheld systems designed to identify minefields and even to detect individual mines.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MCD. DOW, ACTING DIRECTOR, BOARD ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL Mr. Dow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I very much appreciate the invitation to describe our activities with you.

My name is Mike Dow. I am the Acting Director of the Board on Science and Technology for International Development in the Office of International Affairs of the NRC. We are a private organization. The NRC is the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, and was chartered by Congress in 1863 to advise the Government on science and technology matters.

We have been for a number of years looking at the problem of land mines, which came to our attention when we were working with the State Department and Agency for International Development [AID], looking at the followup to the deployment of United States forces in Somalia and looking at the reconstruction efforts. It was very clear from the discussions we had at that time that mine clearance was the overarching priority. A similar situation faces Bosnia today.

The nature of the problem has already been described. I will, however since humanitarian mining, which is our focus, is slightly different, I might provide a slightly different perspective.

The problem is that there are 110 million mines around the world, and last year the United Nations was able to clear 84,000 during a period when another 2 million or so are estimated to be laid.

Unfortunately, current methods for the detection and clearing of these landmines for humanitarian purposes are primitive, slow, dangerous, and expensive, and the problem is that donor agencies and international agencies cannot increase the funding for mine clearance to the level necessary to clear all these millions of mines with current methods, and so the answer has to come from significant improvements in the productivity of current approaches and from development of new technologies, and particularly for making these technologies more cost effective.

So over the past couple of years we have held two international consultations, recognizing that a great deal of the technology is being developed in other countries. I have included with my statement a list of the people and countries that we have been consulting with.

We hope to continue holding such meetings and to encourage international cooperation, particularly with counterparts in Russia and the former Yugoslavia, in the improvement of these technologies.

In the second meeting, which was held last week, the participants emphasized a number of general points, which I will review very quickly, concerning the context of humanitarian mine detection and clearance within which improved technologies should be deployed.

The first point is that the utility of detection and verification technology depends largely on good surveys, global information systems, maps, and photographs, to speed up and reduce the cost of employing detection techniques by reducing the need for either repeating searches or otherwise searching where it is not necessary. Second, the technologies can most usefully be employed within a system of operational data reporting and sharing, as has been mentioned earlier. Resources should be allocated to ensure that the results from clearance efforts in various theaters can be entered in consolidated data bases currently being developed and these should be readily available through, for example, electronic networks.

The distinction between mines and UXO is often artificial, such as it is in urban locations particularly. This is true in Bosnia. Where appropriate, data bases for these two types of problems should be usefully combined.

Third, humanitarian mine clearance differs from military minefield breaching in that mine clearance requires as complete clearance as is feasible under economic constraints. However, much of the area clearance that is necessary in Bosnia is more similar to humanitarian mine clearance than traditional minefielding breaching in that roads and large areas may have to be cleared, not simply pass through mine fields.

Finally, there is need, the participants felt, for a mechanism to bring together the many organizations and agencies-national, international, governmental, private and PVO nongovernmental, and the private sector-to cooperate, coordinate, and exchange information in the interest of more effective efforts to rid the world of these land mines, and they felt that our modest efforts have been useful in that regard.

Of particular interest for Bosnia it was emphasized that geographic information systems [GIS] and multispectral scanning would be very useful in determining the areas that are not mined and to set priorities for mine-clearing efforts.

For clearance of roads which are suspected to be mined, primarily with antitank mines, vehicle, or aerial-platform-mounted metal detector arrays were named as being a very useful technology. Metal detectors could be backed up by radar, and vehiclemounted thermal neutron analysis could be used for verification. It was also suggested that thermal imaging would be a useful technology to periodically patrol cleared roads and look for newly laid mines.

Dogs have been proven to be very effective in southern Africa and Afghanistan and could be used in Bosnia to detect antipersonnel [AP] mines on paths and trails as well as in urban areas, and hand-held metal detectors combined with radar, as was mentioned by some of the earlier presentations, to detect minimum metal mines could also be used in such areas.

It was also suggested that where there are large areas to be cleared, plows such as have been developed by the Swedish Bofer Co., could be used to destroy both antitank and AP mines, although there was a concern raised that if this is on farmland then the clearance of these areas down to 18 inches would effectively ruin the land for farming and developmental purposes, and, again, perhaps the MEDDS system and dogs would be more effective.