COVER STORY
“Mining is one of the slower
industries to adopt this type of technology because they initially did not want to change their methodologies too much. However, that is changing. “We hope to be at the forefront of that in terms of using new technology such as AI in the mining scene, and to be able to harness as much of the current workflow and also bring in new workflows to make everything as seamless and efficient as possible,” Blake concludes. ●
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The drone can safely fit through openings as small as 50x50cm
points then distributes them to make sure all the points have been covered in the area of the map itself. “FARO’s application gives out around 1.3 million points a second,” Blake highlights. “It is a much denser point cloud which is better for making decisions and can pick up a lot more smaller features, or errors, in the map.”
FUTURE OF DRONES Blake is optimistic about the use of Flyability’s drone technology in the underground mining realm, but highlights the company’s future goals, automation being one. “Although the drones are easy to fly, because mining companies change personnel all the time, you may come across someone who has never used this type of equipment without much training – we’re trying to make the whole operation use of the drone easier.” For this reason, the team at Flyability have focused on making their drone easy to use including some automated features such as Return-to-Signal. “Flyability is working in partnership
with mining companies around the world to determine what future developments for the drone and its associated software will be most beneficial for optimal use in underground mine environments.” Blake also envisions the mining world
becoming more welcoming to artificial intelligence (AI), highlighting future hopes to start running an AI algorithm on data collected by their drones to look for features such a fragmentation on the grounds.
Case Study: The Elios 3 at the world’s only polyhalite mine
Just north of Whitby in Northeast England lies ICL Boulby, the only polyhalite mine in the world. The mine was originally established to mine potash in 1968, but has now been repurposed to mine polyhalite, an organic fertiliser. It runs as deep as 1,200m below the surface and extends under the North Sea, reaching as far as 12km off the shore. Part of the challenge of working on such a large, historic site is the huge patchwork of old workings as well as current excavations. These all need to be very carefully mapped to update records – accurate records of mine workings are a statutory requirement in the UK. This helps new developments avoid old workings, as holing through them risks an inrush of gas or water. Simon Pollitt, chief surveyor at ICL Boulby, proposed using Flyability’s Elios 3 to map mine workings as part of record keeping. The mine uses an advance and retreat method whereby tunnels are supported in advance and stripped out on retreat. Once an area has been retreated, it become a no-go zone for personnel. The Elios 3 enables ICL to capitalise on an advance retreat mining method while still working within the confines of the regulations. The tunnel the operators wanted to map was 340m long and typically
required four flights with the Elios 3 to cover the entire area within 20 minutes. However, thanks to Flyability’s new surveying payload, Pollitt was able to complete one scan covering the area previously surveyed: halving the flight time and preserving battery life. Also because of the increased range of the latest technology, post-processing time is halved as multiple scans do not need to be merged. “If miners were to survey that mine, they would be down there for hours.
Meanwhile, a drone can do it in minutes,” Blake explains. “So, from a safety point of view, the safety officer loves it because it means that the workers are down there less time and are inhaling less of the bad air.” As of 2023, the Elios 3 has been in use at ICL Boulby for nine months, and the surveying team rely on its regular LiDAR scans for various surveying and volumetric projects. According to Blake, their operations have completely changed because of the information they can get from the drone. “The traditional measurement methods are rapidly being outstripped by the Elios 3, and we’re seeing more mines like Boulby rely on it instead of the old ways. We expect mines like this to have multiple Elios 3 units in the future as they take full advantage of remote underground surveys with drones.”
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