Mine and minefield detection has become an increasingly important problem from both a military and humanitarian perspective. While the focus of mine detection systems is to locate individual mines for reclamation and humanitarian purposes, minefield detection is important in tactical military operations to identify avenues of approach. Mine and minefield detection systems have steadily grown from metal detectors and manual probes to highly sophisticated vehicle mounted and airborne systems. The increasing demand for real-time, accurate, semi-automated systems has directed the efforts of researchers around the world. One important desirable feature of mine and minefield detection systems is the “stand-off” operation. This type of system would allow a soldier or civilian to detect mines from a location where they are not in the harms way.

The purpose of this project, funded by the U.S. Army's Night Vision Laboratory, was to examine an interfaces for displaying data that is returned from an airborne mine detection system with the goal of maximizing the effectiveness of such a system. The LITE lab carried out a series of evaluation and usability series, which indicated the importance of interface factors, and also revealed important variables regarding the mental models of the evaluators, in order to guide future interface design.

• Agarwal, S., Reddy, M., Hall, R.H., Brown, J., Woodard, T., & Trang, A. (2005). Evaluating Operator Performance in Aided Airborne Mine Detection.Proceedings of the Defense and Security Symposium, Vol. 5794, 102 - 112.
• Reddy, M., Agarwal, S., Hall, R.H., Brown, J., Woodard, T., & Trang, Anh (2005). Warfighter in the Loop: Mental Models in Minefield Detection.Proceedings of the Defense and Security Symposium, Vol. 5794, 1050 - 1059