Disarmadillo: an open source, sustainable, robotic platform for humanitarian demining

Abstract

<p class="Abstract">The mine action community suffers from a lack of information sharing among stakeholders. Since 2004, Snail Aid has been working on Disarmadillo, a dramatic shift in paradigm: an open source hardware platform for humanitarian demining. Developed mainly thanks to volunteers’ work across more than 15 years, the machine is now going to get a push thanks to the project Disarmadillo+, in collaboration between Snail Aid - Technology for Development and the Italian Institute of Technology. The new version of the machine will be improved in terms of manoeuvrability, modularity, versatility, without compromising its characteristic features. The re-design will take into account the need of keeping the cost low and the technology appropriate to the context where it will work. The ability of the machine to serve two different purposes will also be preserved: the machine will keep on being easily convertible to its original agricultural nature, being developed around a commercial off-the-shelf powertiller. The paper presents the machine and the research work foreseen within the new project</p>