With Drones, Geophysics and AI, Researchers Prepare to Do Battle Against Landmines
CISR
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(Columbia Climate School) When Jasper Baur was a freshman at New York’s Binghamton University, his interests centered on earth sciences. Then he got involved in a seemingly unrelated pursuit: harnessing drone-mounted geophysical instruments to aid in the slow, dangerous work of detecting landmines.
Baur, now a PhD. student at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, is now combining graduate studies in volcanology with developing new demining technologies. “Volcanoes and mines are both explosive hazards,” he said. “We use a lot of the same instruments and data analysis techniques to study them. If you want to protect people, you have to understand the earth, and how these hazards fit in.”