Global description

A test minefield has been laid out in Leopoldsburg (Belgium) in order to have a test area where all possible ground truth is available.

This minefield has been designed with the help of the deminers of DOVO/SEDEE (Dienst voor Opruiming en Vernietiging van Ontploffingstuigen / Service d'Enlèvement et de Destruction d'Engins Explosifs), the bomb disposal unit of the Belgian army.
It has the following properties:

• Anti-personnel and antitank mines are present,
• some dummy objects have been laid,
• the minefield is divided in several smaller minefields (A,B,C...),
• minefield C is a structured (unrealistic) minefield built to provide signatures of different mines and dummy objects at different depths, orientations...
• for other minefields, caution has been taken to get realistic minefields:
• Realistic burying procedures,
• Realistic positions, depths, patterns...
• the way mines have been laid agrees with the reality,
• the geographic structure and the patterns used are realistic.
• the minefield is divided in several smaller minefields.
The department of Geodesy of the Royal Military Academy, led by Alain Muls, performed a survey of the minefield in order to get the precise positions of all objects laid, both mines and "false alarms", in three different co-ordinate systems (Lambert, UTM and WGS84).

During phase 1, only minefield C location and related mine positions, types etc. was known. This minefield was used for training in order to learn mine signatures, available mine indicators, etc. The knowledge gathered on this test minefield was then used to detect other minefields.  An evaluation was then performed to decide whether the detection capabilities are sufficient to proceed to phase 2. For this evaluation, all mine positions, types etc. were made available and compared to what was found by the consortium. The results were quite encouraging since 7 minefields out of 9 where detected.

Description of test minefield C

Here is a colour image of minefield C with the position of the mines. The original image comes from Eurosense.

 
The description of each object in given in the following table.
 

Number	Type	Name	Position	Depth	Ground
C273	ATK	M6	Horizontal	10	Sand/heath
C274	ATK	M6	Horizontal	0	Sand/heath
C275	ATK	M6	Horizontal	15	Sand/heath
C276	ATK	M6	Horizontal	5	Sand/heath
C277	ATK	M6	Horizontal	10	Sand/heath
C278	ATK	M6	Horizontal	5	Sand/heath
C279	ATK	M6	135 degrees	5	Sand/heath
C280	ATK	M6	45 degrees	5	Sand/heath
C281	ATK	M6	Horizontal	on the ground	Sand/heath
C282	ATK	M6	Horizontal	0	Sand/heath
C283	ATK	HPD F1	Horizontal	10	Sand/grass
C284	ATK	HPD F1	Horizontal	0	Sand/grass
C285	ATK	HPD F1	Horizontal	15	Sand/grass
C286	ATK	HPD F1	Horizontal	5	Sand/grass
C287	ATK	HPD F1	Horizontal	10	Sand/grass/heath
C288	ATK	HPD F1	Horizontal	5	Sand/grass/heath
C289	ATK	HPD F1	135 degrees	5	Sand/grass/heath
C290	ATK	HPD F1	45 degrees	5	Sand/grass/heath
C291	ATK	HPD F1	Horizontal	on the ground	Sand/grass/heath
C292	ATK	HPD F1	Horizontal	0	Sand/grass/heath
C293	Apers	M35Bg	Horizontal	10	Sand/grass/heath
C294	Apers	M35Bg	Horizontal	0	Sand/grass/heath
C295	Apers	M35Bg	Horizontal	15	Sand/grass/heath
C296	Apers	M35Bg	Horizontal	5	Sand/grass/heath
C297	Apers	M35Bg	Horizontal	10	Sand/grass/heath
C298	Apers	M35Bg	Horizontal	5	Sand/grass/heath
C299	Apers	M35Bg	135 degrees	5	Sand/grass/heath
C300	Apers	M35Bg	45 degrees	5	Sand/grass/heath
C301	Apers	M35Bg	Horizontal	on the ground	Sand/grass/heath
C302	Apers	M35Bg	Horizontal	0	Sand/grass/heath
C303	Concrete block	none	Horizontal	10	Sand/grass
C304	Concrete block	none	Horizontal	0	Sand/grass
C305	Concrete block	none	Horizontal	15	Sand/grass
C306	Concrete block	none	Horizontal	5	Sand/grass
C307	Concrete block	none	Horizontal	10	Sand/grass
C308	Concrete block	none	Horizontal	5	Sand/grass
C309	Concrete block	none	135 degrees	5	Sand/grass
C310	Concrete block	none	45 degrees	5	Sand/grass
C311	Concrete block	none	Horizontal	on the ground	Sand/grass
C312	Concrete block	none	Horizontal	0	Sand/grass

For comments or questions contact: Pascal Druyts or Yann Yvinec.