The LAMI
Laboratoire de Microinformatique
Microprocessor and Interface Lab
DIGGER DTR
Demining Technology Research
Recherche en Technologies de Deminage
Frederic
Guerne The Formal CV:
Frederic Guerne got a Diploma in Electronics from the ETS (Ecole Technique Superieure) St-Imier in 1992. He then worked for three years in the industry.
From January 1996 to December 1997 he worked on sensors for the detection of antipersonnel mines in the Demining Technology Center (DeTeC), the next step after the minerat project.
During the DeTec periode he went in Belgium, Croatia and in Cambodia to test the GPR based mine sensor developped at EPFL. These experiences gave him a lot of field experiences. In January 1997, the project DeTeC ended. Frederic and his small familly returned in their native Jura-Bernois (Swiss region) and Frederic went back in the industry. But the demining adventure is not finished for him. From his DeTec experience he imagines a new kind of mine clearance process combining mechanical digging and bulk explosive detection. In order to prove the feasibility of his idea, he set up a non-profit association called DIGGER DTR (Demining Technology Research) which aim is to built and test a working prototype.Frederic is also married to the wonderful Beatrice (see the last paragraph below...). Since the 16th November 1996 they are mother and father. The name of their superb son is Jonathan (French pronunciation) and nowadays the next one is on the way.
Publications :
"Groundpenetrating radar and induction coil sensor
imaging for antipersonnel mines detection"
C.Bruschini, B.Gros, F.Guerne, P.-Y.Pièce, O.Carmona
6th international conference on Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR'96),
30 September-3 October 1996, Sendai, Japan
"DETEC-1
and DETEC-2 : GPR mine sensors for data acquisition in the field"
F.Guerne, B.Gros, M.Schreiber, P.-Y. Pièce, J.-D. Nicoud
International workshop on sustainable humanitarian demining, 29 September-1
October 1997, Zagreb, Croatia
"Building
a Sandbox with a Cartesian Gantry for Sensor Testing"
F.Guerne
International workshop on sustainable humanitarian demining, 29 September-1
October 1997, Zagreb, Croatia
The Informal Part:
Do you know what a wonder is? This is small a story of one...
Frederic is quite imaginative. His brain is always working and finding ideas to make more or less crazy appliances - sometimes it's even a bit stressing for him. For example, some years ago he studied and built a rocket for taking photographs of the ground from the sky.
All his projects were very exciting but he had always the same problem: they were not very useful for the humanity; his rocket, for example, was not able to stop a famine or anything like it. Frederic has strong beliefs, he is a Christian (!!!! One more fanatic ...!!!, no I don't believe it ...), and the aim of his work is very important for him.
So he was searching a solution to his problem, but taking his time. One day one of his colleagues told him about the possibility of developing a robot to search for landmines. There was no immediate "flash" in Frederic's mind, but some months he really got excited about this idea and thought: "This is a very good project and it could save lives, I will go in this direction!".
The adventure was about to start, without Frederic realising it. As you know it's not an easy problem to solve and Frederic was doubtful. This is the reason why he started, during his spare time, to investigate the problem and to build at home a robot in order to get familiar with this technology. It took more than one year. During his investigations he participated at a workshop on "Antipersonnel Mine Detection and Removal" (WAPM'95) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Lausanne (EPFL) organised by professor J.-D. Nicoud. There he talked for about thirty seconds with him, after which prof Nicoud asked Frederic if he was interested to work in his team which was about to be founded. Needless to say, Frederic immediately answered yes, without believing too much in it. But the dream came indeed true about one month later when professor Nicoud called him personally to check if he was still interested in his offer. So, after asking his wonderful wife if she agreed to it, they together stopped their jobs and moved in the direction of Lausanne.
It is how he went in the DeTeC team, where he can work all the day on this project. Isn't this a bit of a wonder ?
You can reach him at :
DIGGER DTR, BP 59, CH-2710 Tavannes, Switzerland
Last updated : 29.12.98 fg