Power tillers are very simple and versatile machines with large scale diffusion in developing countries, where they are commonly used both for agriculture and for transportation purposes. A new integrated participatory approach that makes use of and improves local end-users knowledge has been used to design a new robotic system for humanitarian demining applications in Sri Lanka, using power tiller as core module. A demining machine composed by a tractor unit, a ground processing tool and a vegetation cutting tool is here presented together with results obtained from the first blast test on the preliminary version of tractor unit armouring. Different breakable connections between wheels and axle have been designed to cause physical detachment and interrupt the transmission of the shock wave released by the explosion of a mine under one wheel. Effects of explosions on different types of wheels and on the chassis have been recorded and commented.

More than 100,000,000 anti-personnel mines have been laid in deferent part of the world by terrorists or government forces. The mines are cheapest weapon, built to make horrible injuries, afecting active people, with major falls-of into economic growth.Therefore, after or during a war demining is a big technological problem which needs to address by the governments. All demining activities can be classiied mainly in two different ways, military demining and humanitarian demining. Main objective of military demining is to make a quick safe path for troops and may be 80% clearing is enough for them. On the other hand, humanitarian demining target is to clear 100% to ensure the use of lands by people who are not involved in the conlicts for their day-to-day activities including farming. Mainly humanitarian demining has two tasks: detection and removal. Still the use of robots is questionable in this regard. Mainly robots work well for clean and reliable tasks. When the price to performance ratio is too high, they are academic toys. This chapter presents the overview of the available robotic technologies with a depth comparison between them by considering the appropriateness to the local context.

Demining is calamity of third world countries. The clearing is ceaseless, more expensive than the spreading, and terrorist return is obtained by weakening of the antagonistic population. The mines are cheapest weapon, built to make horrible injuries, affecting active people, with major falls-off into economic growth. The disaster is notably cruel in Sri Lanka, with anti-person mines spread in the northeast region. After the ceasefire, the international organisations started the mine sweeping, with poor issues, due to politico-economical motivations in direct bond with wants in the technical effectiveness. The pitiable situation is worsened, as most rich lands are removed from farming exploitation, with increasing of the internally displaced persons. Now, clearing is engineering duty, and the humanitarian goal comes to be technical challenge. The advanced robotics fulfils clean and reliable tasks, on condition to upgrade sophistication and cost and to loose third-world appropriateness. The challenge is to turn local machines and awareness into effective robotic aids, willingly used by the local people, and to enhance the on-going outcomes. The analysis, mainly, addresses the following points: - the engaged technologies need to provide special purpose outfits and to involve operators having adapted uniformity; - the work-flow pre-setting ought to detail the duty-cycles and to establish the standard achievements; - the planning has to specify the on-process warning/emergency management and the failure protection rules; - the operators’ instruction and training shall aim at off-process optimised work-flows to circumvent risky issues; - the effectiveness comes from organised routine agendas, in conformity with allotted tasks and emergency events. This is a mix of organisational and technologic demands, calling for responsible commitment of the involved people, so that the local Civil Service is entitled to do the clearing operations, and the all engaged community is solidly concerned. The winning solution shall look at low-cost robotic outfits, to be obtained with resort to nearby available resources and competences (e.g., drawn on from the local agricultural machinery and know-how), and full account of the cost limits, while aiming at the process effectiveness by the mix of enabling cues, principally deferred to enhancing the regional awareness and the factual dedication. The paper stresses on fairly unorthodox robots, addressing unmanned effectors facilities joined with intelligent remote-command abilities, not as advanced achievements, rather as cheapest productivity upgrading, assembled from standard farming devices, through the shared know-how and commitment of locally involved operators.