Tripwire-operated fragmentation mines form a major hazard to deminers, especially where the wire is concealed in vegetation which the deminer has to clear. A similar detection problem is encountered with wire-operated IEDs. This paper discusses some possible technologies for tripwire detection, including acoustic, thermal imaging, and electromagnetic methods, and proposes a diversity approach for use in a reliable, small, inexpensive and long-range detector which can find tripwires completely obscured by vegetation. The results of some experimental measurements using this approach are presented. These suggest that the diversity approach gives a better performance than a pulseinduction detector used alone.
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