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CANINE CAPABILITIES
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MECHEM EXPLOSIVE AND DRUG DETECTION SYSTEM (MEDDS)
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| MEDDS is an improved version of a technology originally developed by MECHEM in the early 1970's to detect the presence of weapons, ammunition, explosives and drugs at border posts and road blocks. This technology (then named MSOS) was successfully deployed by the South African Defence Force between 1975 and 1988 when the cessation of conflict and a perceived reduced threat resulted in it being phased out. |
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| MECHEM has however, over the past decade, further developed the system as a very effective tool for mine action area reduction and the operational use of the system, especially since 2003, has led to international acceptance and UN accreditation. |
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| Historically dogs have been used by mankind to sniff out the unique smells of a variety of substances. Dogs are however fallible living creatures and as such have certain limitations (such as extreme temperatures, fatigue, distraction, disease and loss of concentration). The MEDDS approach mitigates all the above limiting factors by "taking the odour to the dog rather than taking the dog to the odour". By drawing the air (and the smells and impurities present/suspended in the air) present in a closed volume or area through a filter medium and then presenting these "samples" to specially trained dogs in a controlled environment, the dog can easily identify any odour present in the filter and indicate the presence of the odour that it was trained to detect. |
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Dog and handler analyzing MEDDS Samples |
Dog indicating positive MEDDS sample |
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by sitting down |
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| By cross referencing the number on the identified MEDDS filter tube to the origin where the sample was taken, the specific closed volume/area can then be searched using accredited manual means to find the source of a specific odour/smell. |
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| Where the specific odour is absent the volume/area can be declared free from the specific substance and it requires no further scrutiny. This constitutes a substantial saving in time, effort and money and as a result this process has been defined as an "area reduction" technology. |
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| MEDDS has been proven to be a very reliable method to detect the presence (or otherwise put the "absence") of a wide variety of substances. MECHEM has operationally proven it to be extremely cost effective in the security role (rapid scrutiny for and detection of contraband such as guns, ammunition, explosives, drugs and animal products at border posts, road blocks, etc) and for area reduction during landmine impact surveys and clearance operations. |
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MEDDS Filter Tube in Container |
Manual MEDDS Sampling of a road |
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| When used for area reduction as part of Mine Action Operations, sampling can be done manually (where it is safe to walk) or from the safe interior of a Mine Protected Vehicle (MPV). As MEDDS in actual fact distinguishes between areas where explosive odour is present and where such odour is absent (in order to facilitate the area reduction), it is not able to determine the exact location of an individual landmine. |
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MEDDS Sampling from a Mine Protected Vehicle |
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| The original MECHEM Explosives and Drug Detection System (MEDDS) has recently been copied by a variety of organizations and institutions under the umbrella name Remote Explosive Scent Tracing (REST). Organizations using REST have however focused mainly on research and operational success has been limited. |
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Mine Action Services
