How It Works

The creation of a fully-fledged HeroRAT takes time and a great deal of training.

The training process begins after the rats are four weeks of age and are weaned from their mothers. Trainers begin socializing the young rats to the sights, sounds, and textures of the world. For example, they pass generators, walk on wet grass, go for a ride in the lorry, and meet some new people. This helps the rats learn their environment and not be afraid of things they will encounter in the field, in training or on an operation.

Then the rats learn to begin associating a clicking sound with a food reward – usually some banana or peanuts. Once they learn that “click” means food, the real training begins.

Rats begin to be trained in a series of stages and learn that they must indicate on positive samples to get the food, then it’s just practice, practice, practice.

Finding landmines and detecting disease is a complicated business so HeroRATs specialize in one of three disciplines: detecting landmines in the field, detecting tuberculosis, or working on our Remote Explosives Scent Tracing (REST) project which is in a research phase.

In the field, leashed rats systematically search the mined areas and pinpoint the location of the buried explosives by scratching on the topsoil. Detection of buried landmines, is the last step before landmine removal, and it is one of the most crucial, but also tedious jobs of the demining process.

Once the boundaries of a minefield are delineated, the task of locating and removing the landmines and UXO can start. To speed up the process of demining, mine detection rats are used to directly indicate the positions of buried landmines. On average, it takes one rat twenty minutes to search a 100m2 box. And in general, mine detection rats cover 200 sqm per day.

The rat is guided by a search string, which is connected between its two trainers. The rat moves systematically up and down the search string, processing lane by lane through the suspected box. Both trainers take position at opposite sides of the box in the safe lane, fixing the search string to the lower leg. When a rat reaches the end of the box, the operators make a lateral step, and the rat moves into the next lane. A box or lane system provides the safe access lanes for the trainers. APOPO is using 5 by 20 meter boxes, which means that the rat has to search 40 lanes of half a meter to clear one box.

The rat indicates the position of a landmine by scratching the surface at the spot. Being lightweight, they do not set off the explosive devices. In a training situation, the trainer clicks upon a correct indication by the rat and the animal moves to the trainer to get its reward. Typically, one to two rats are used consecutively to search an area. (The number of rats to be used depends on the risk assessment of the area, operational scenario and the combination with other search techniques. Quality control behind other detectors or a confirmation search behind a mechanical clearance will require less animals compared to primary detection).

After the rat has been fully trained on the training fields in Tanzania, a series of blind tests is carried out to assess its performance. If the animal passes each of its tests, it is internally accredited and ready to be selected for demining operations. As with dogs, the rats are re-calibrated on the specific mines found in the demining operations, and must be officially accredited by the entity that oversees demining in that country, before entering into the real minefield.