Summary and Key Points: The HALO Trust is utilizing artificial intelligence to enhance landmine detection in Ukraine, the world's largest minefield. Supported by a $4 million grant from Amazon Web Services, HALO employs AI to analyze drone-captured imagery, drastically reducing analysis time from days to hours.
-Ukraine’s extensive surface-laid mines make drone detection effective, aiding HALO's mission to clear mines faster and safer.
-With 542 drone flights and 11 terabytes of data already collected, HALO aims to deploy this AI tool by year-end, offering a model for global mine clearance efforts, including in challenging terrains like Colombia.
In the third year of its war of self-defense against an invading Russia, Ukraine has developed a reputation as a laboratory for battlefield innovation, from the way it employs drones and drone countermeasures to how it uses artillery. And close to the fight in eastern Ukraine, a nongovernment organization is employing artificial intelligence in a pilot program that may have life-saving implications for the entire world.
The HALO Trust, which has been working to clear mines from conflict zones for more than three decades, is applying AI to imagery captured by aerial drones to develop reliable identification profiles for landmines hidden within the terrain. Its work is partly enabled by Amazon Web Services (AWS), which gave the organization a $4 million grant in June to support secure storage of the vast amounts of data needed to build the profiles.
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