Probabilistic hierarchical spatial model for mine locations and its application in robotic landmine search

One way to improve the efficiency of mine search, compared with a complete coverage algorithm, is to direct the search based on the spatial pattern of the minefield. This paper extends our original statistical approach (2001) to identify the regular pattern of a minefield at the beginning of the searching process. The extracted pattern parameters are used to build a probability distribution map of the configuration of the minefield. The map then can be used to guide the search for more mines efficiently. The new approach can efficiently capture the systematic and accumulated random departure of the actual mine locations from the grid pattern caused by the inaccuracy of the translational and rotational motion of the mine layer. Online implementation of our approach on a mobile robot is feasible.