Delivering Drone Technology And Capability In Mining

In recent years, drone technology has revolutionised industries worldwide, most notably in agriculture, construction, and public safety, with a lot of media attention in conflict regions. For almost a decade now, Unmanned Aerial Systems Incorporated (UAS Inc) has been achieving world firsts and delivering rich data insights into the dull, dirty, dangerous, and inaccessible regions typical in an underground mining operation. UAS Inc has emerged as a key player and strategic partner in this transformative space, utilising cutting-edge technologies from around the world, including Australia, Switzerland, and the US.

Drones no longer a novelty in mining

The adoption of drones has been transformative in the mining industry. Due to the ability to access excluded or confined areas with integrated sensors to capture detailed imagery, video and Lidar-derived point clouds provide insights that were previously impossible to acquire. Traditional cavity mapping systems and terrestrial Lidar for areas that can be reached would take a complete shift to capture and process, compared to what can be achieved with a 10 min. drone flight, while delivering high fidelity video or point clouds within the hour. Across an entire mine operation, this resembles a significant reduction in the time it takes to acquire data, but at the same time delivers a significant increase in the quality, coverage, and range of data sources for multiple teams across the operation. UAS Inc has leveraged these advantages to pioneer data solutions that monitor settlement, divergence, convergence, overbreak, and a suite of calculations for stockpiles, fall of ground, or fragmentation analysis.

Deploying the right tools for the task

At the heart of UAS Inc’s technological capability is its implementation and honed understanding of complimentary drone technologies for the environment and required deliverables. Large sections of underground mines are inaccessible but critical to the ongoing operations; stopes and voids are out of bounds, but several factors or conditions could impact their usability. Draw points, chutes, and ore passes often get blocked or may be experiencing stability failure resulting in dilution. The suite of drone platforms UAS Inc operates enables drones to be deployed with sensors specific to the mission.

Two key technologies in the UAS Inc arsenal include missions conducted autonomously beyond human reach to map the surroundings in real-time while actively avoiding obstacles, and capturing intense point clouds using Lidar sensor and simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM). This market-leading capability, from Emesent in Australia, enables drones to safely fly and navigate in underground environments where GPS signals are non-existent, capturing up to 1 million data points per second, and distinguishing features smaller than 0.5 in.

The second drone platform is the Flyability system from Switzerland, with a robust cage that allows the drone to safely enter confined spaces, narrow veins, ore passes, and voids where high resolution video is captured. Its second-generation system also piggybacks a Lidar sensor. Using range extenders and highly experienced technicians, UAS Inc has deployed this drone to assist with incident recovery, map extremely challenging environments, monitor an area after blast activity, and showcase areas of a mine that have water ingress or flooding before resuming operations.

 

This is a preview of an article that was originally published in the March 2025 issue of Global Mining Review.

Subscribe to Global Mining Review for free to read this article in full and many more here.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/07042025/delivering-drone-technology-and-capability-in-mining/