Drones can now be used to clear minefields

One of the big advantages to the commercial use of drones is making labor not only faster or more convenient but also safer for workers. One entrepreneur on Kickstarter wants to help people tasked with clearing minefields with the Mine Kafon Drone. The drone is a hexacopter that is able to map out specific areas and then detect and destroy mines. It uses a metal detector attached to the base of the drone, which looks like a flying bucket, to find the mines. Once it has the location of all the mines in an area, it can set about placing detonators at each location. The UAV, however, does not come cheap. The full package that includes the drone with the robot gripper costs 5,000 euros, or about $5,500..

This is a pretty smart utilization of modern drone technology, but it is obviously quite specialized. In fact, Kafon creator Massoud Hassani pointed out specific areas where something similar to this this would come in useful. Included in the map on Kickstarter are Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Cambodia and Colombia. The campaign said there are 100 million landmines worldwide, resulting in an average of 10 civilian deaths per day.

Hassani said drones could enable the elimination of minefields within 10 years. He added that at our current pace with existing technologies, it would take 1,100 years. This is an admirable goal, although there might be some big unforeseen hurdles that would get in the way of achieving such a lofty objective. The important thing is that modern technology is enabling people to do things that would have been thought impossible or prohibitively expensive not long ago.

Mapping drones are being used in other innovative ways for commercial use. Insurance companies are utilizing them to evaluate property, for example. This is not as dramatic or inspiring as the humanitarian mission of wiping out landmines, but the technology can be used in all kinds of ways. Best of all, China's highly competitive drone market continues to drive down prices.