—— The Need
Legacy tools.
Escalating threats.
Clearing a minefield today looks much like it did in 1945. Eight decades of research and investment have narrowed the gap — but not closed it. Buried explosive threats still kill and maim thousands of civilians every year, on land that cannot be farmed, built on, or safely crossed.
Photo: U.S. Army EOD specialists and military working dog conduct route clearance operations in Syria, October 2025. The soldier at left carries a handheld mine detector — the baseline tool for locating buried explosive threats. Sgt. Zachary Ta, U.S. Army / DVIDS. Use of U.S. Department of Defense visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.
Eight decades. A New Approach.
Old Detection Methods
It still comes down to a person and a metal detector.
Clearing a minefield today looks much like it did in 1945: people, metal detectors, one careful step at a time. Dogs, rats, and machines assist — but every suspected area still ends with a human verifying it by hand.
International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) are built around this baseline. The standards are rigorous and the professionals who apply them are skilled — but the underlying detection physics have not fundamentally changed in eighty years.
The result is a survey and clearance process that is methodical, personnel-intensive, and costly — and which faces performance limits in the soil conditions most common to the world’s most heavily contaminated regions. The professionals who apply these standards are skilled, and the tools they use are well-suited to many environments. SSOLAS is designed to extend that reach into conditions where conventional sensing faces its limits.
“Eighty years of detection — and it still comes down to a person and a metal detector.”
Evans & Temple — “The Detection Problem: An Eight-Decade Challenge” Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2024
Electromagnetic induction, ground-penetrating radar, infrared imaging, chemical vapor sensing, and early seismic systems have all been explored. Each addresses part of the problem. None provides a complete answer across varying soils, depths, target materials, and operational conditions.
Global Contamination
The scale of the problem.
Measured in lives and land.
There is no single global total for contaminated land — the Landmine Monitor notes explicitly that country-by-country reporting is incomplete. But the figures that do exist are staggering.
Ukraine — The World’s Most Mined Country
43M
Acres potentially contaminated — roughly 29% of Ukraine’s total territory, approximately the combined area of Missouri and Illinois. Within a total mine action cost exceeding $28 billion — the largest active demining challenge in the world.
The U.S. Has its Own Unfinished Business
11M+
Acres of land across nearly 2,000 ranges in the U.S. with the potential hazard of UXO contamination.
Source: ERDC Fact Sheet — Unexploded Ordnance Discrimination
Innovation Shortfalls
Eight decades of investment. The gap remains.
Researchers and defense agencies have systematically expanded the detection toolkit since World War II. Each sensing modality has addressed part of the problem — and each has defined limits in specific soil conditions, target types, or operational environments. Seismic sensing is the next modality under active development, designed to cover the conditions where established methods face their greatest constraints.
Seismic sensing offers the broadest detection opportunity yet identified. Combined with magnetometry, AI-assisted analysis, and automated deployment, it represents a potential step change in what is achievable.
Evans & Temple (2024) document the full arc of this challenge: electromagnetic induction, ground-penetrating radar, infrared imaging, chemical vapor sensing, and early seismic systems have all been explored over eighty years of active research — yet no single technology covers the full range of buried threats across varying soils, depths, and casings.
1940s
Electromagnetic Induction (EM)
Metal detectors effective on metallic targets in low-conductivity soils. Foundational — and still the IMAS baseline today.
1970s–80s
Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR)
Radar pulses detect subsurface interfaces. Works in dry sandy soils; performance degrades severely in clay and wet conditions.
1990s
Infrared & Chemical Vapor
Thermal and molecular sensing approaches. Promising under specific conditions; limited by weather, soil moisture, and burial depth.
2000s–present
AI & Sensor Fusion
Machine learning applied to multi-sensor arrays. Improves classification but does not resolve the fundamental physics gap in difficult soils.
Now – Under active development
Seismic — SSOLAS
Detects how buried objects change the propagation of sound through soil. Unaffected by EM interference. Designed to work in mineralized, clay-heavy, and conductive soils where electromagnetic sensing faces performance limits. Each sensing modality has extended the toolkit; seismic is the next physics frontier under development.
SSOLAS Is Different
Different physics. A better way to find what’s buried.
SSOLAS uses seismic sensing to detect subsurface objects. Instead of detecting metal, it listens for how buried objects change the way sound moves through soil. That means it works where metal detectors, ground penetrating radar, and magnetometers fail — in mineralized soil, metallic clutter, and with plastic-cased or minimum-metal threats.
Established methods
Electromagnetic sensing. systematic survey. rigorous standards.
SSOLAS
Different physics.
Listens for the object itself.
