Lighting the way
Denmark is overflowing with ideas about how technology can support future defence tasks, now 28 promising projects across research and industry are receiving more than 30 million from The National Defence Technology Centre.
One of the projects receiving support is Terra Salva, which DTU Electro runs in collaboration with SDU and the companies CurHumBra Consulting ApS, GLAZE Technologies and Adamant Surface Technology. The researchers are developing a landmine detection system based on electromagnetic radiation at terahertz frequencies, also known as far infrared radiation. Far infrared radiation can for instance be used to identify explosives, and it can penetrate virtually any material except metal and liquid water, making it possible to find buried landmines, which are made of e.g. plastic or ceramic.
It takes a village
THz Innovation Lab and GLAZE Technologies work closely with DTU Skylab, through which the team learnt that a new person from the defence had joined DTU's mentor corps, Anders Dalgaard, whom Assistant Professor and GLAZE CEO Simon Jappe Lange contacted. After an initial talk about ideas, Dalgaard involved a friend, Erling Dyrmose, who has a great career within e.g. the US Air Force.
Lange initially thought they should apply to the NDC for an investment to inspect fighter planes, but Dyrmose disagreed. According to him, finding landmines was a more important matter. So the team applied for an NDC grant for this with Dalgaard and Dyrmose as advisors in the project, and GLAZE Technologies as the commercial partner who will bring the solution from the lab to the field.
A collaboration demonstrating what DTU excels in: collaborating closely with our own spinouts, benefiting from DTU Skylab which brings value to both the spinouts and DTU. This model is exactly what made this grant possible.
Saving lives in active war zones
“At our innovation laboratory, we are already good at making instrumentation that can be used outside the laboratory, and now we are in the process of developing instrumentation that can be used in difficult conditions. So towards the end of next year, we expect to be able to send out a drone that can find mines in difficult conditions” Lange says.
The team hopes to be able to send the technology to Ukraine, which following the Russian invasion is deemed the most mined nation in the country - experts say that it will take decades to make safe. The Terra Salva team is continuously working on an agreement to be able to help the Ukranians - because of the current situation in Ukraine, it is faster to get approval to test new technological solutions there than elsewhere.
Leading the field
“The idea of using far infrared radiation for landmine detection has been thought of before, but others have not been able to take it out of the lab. We have succeeded, so we can actually benefit from many other researchers’ discoveries when we take them out and translate them into reality" says Lange.
So how did they manage to do, what no one else has been able to? Because the team has the world's smallest and most robust THz system. It is so small and robust that with some modifications - which they are doing in this project - it can be sent out into the field on a drone. When it comes to the actual application the team is not the first to look into mine detection using THz - in fact others have shown it to be a promising idea. But no one has been able to get it fully out into the field before. With Terra Salva we aim to take it to the field, and turn our research into real, tangible value for society, saving lives in war zones.
