Harvard researchers have married a smartphone to a metal detector to create PETALS, a cost-efficient option to improve mine detection in third-world countries. Traditionally, locating land mines has required a delicately trained ear to tell apart deadly explosives from, say, a can. This new system removes one of the most guesswork by mapping the beeps on a cellphone screen, making a silhouette of whatever is beneath the outside. Similar results were accomplished using acoustic sensors, but up to now they have been relegated to investigate projects and would likely be too expensive to be used where they’re needed most. Not just should the simplicity of PETALS (which stands for Pattern Enhancement Tool for Assisting Land mine Sensing) make it cheap and straightforward to deploy but, in tests novice de-miners were ready to improve their performance by 80 percent — that’s a least a number of less brave humanitarians going “boom” inside the field.
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