Technology & equipment
To achieve that, Hovermap streams a low-level resolution point cloud, based on a subset of the LIDAR reflections generated as the drone flies, on to a tablet. This allows the operator to see a 3D map being created in real time.
“By tapping on the map, you can place a waypoint and the drone self-navigates to try and reach that waypoint. Importantly – because if you’re at the beginning of a stope or a drive, you don’t know what’s happening around the corner – you can place waypoints that are way outside the current bounds of the map.” Those waypoints help guide the drone so that it self-navigates to where it needs to go – and back again – safely and within its battery capacity. “The beyond-line-of-sight capability means you can get into areas that are otherwise impossible to reach,” says Hrabar. “It makes flying easier because it’s just a tablet – we joke that even our grandmothers could fly the drone.”
Hrabar says automation has the potential to remove people from mines completely, even with the latency times of interfaces such as 4G and Wi-Fi commonly available today. “We did a proof of concept where I flew a drone underground in Canada from my office in Brisbane,” he says. “We just used remote standard net collaboration tools to control the drone because you don’t need a low- latency link.”
Use data effectively
Flying in a mine environment, even for a few minutes, can generate huge amounts of data. It’s important to find a balance between what’s needed as an immediate priority and what can be saved on board for analysis at a later time.
“When we fly in these environments, we typically get very dense data and that can be sub-sampled,” Hrabar says, citing an example of a surveyor who is trying to calculate the volume of a stope and doesn’t immediately need access to full high-resolution data to do this. “Maybe a point every 10cm is sufficient, but if engineers are trying to map geotechnical structures, they need as much detail as possible, so the full resolution data is always available.” The resolution is reduced so that it’s usable and the full resolution data is then stored on board automatically. Products like Hovermap are standalone devices that can interface with a variety of drones and robots, but what obstacles exist in a world of different standards? “It’s definitely a challenge,” admits Hrabar. “We started off interfacing with Da-Jiang Innovations (DJI) drones because they were the market leader and they had a software development kit (SDK), which basically allowed you to tap into their flight controller, to read from it and write to it.” However, that system is not open source and replies on documentation from the supplier. “It’s also a Chinese-made system and many countries and
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industries don’t want to use Chinese drones,” adds Hrabar, citing potential security concerns. As a result, the team at Emesent adapted their
system’s autonomy to an open-source flight controller called Pixhawk – a system used in many drones, including the Zoe, a quadcopter manufactured by Acecore Technologies that Emesent is exploiting. “Because it’s open source, you get full access to what’s under the hood and you can adapt things,” he explains.
Look to the future
Hrabar sees huge growth potential in terms of further adapting this technology for mining landscapes. LIDAR sensors, combined with drones, he says, can be used for more than just safety and mapping. “Our vision of the future is a mine teeming with drones and robotic systems all working in unison to continuously capture and monitor,” he says, adding that airborne drones can be used in combination with ground robots and autonomous vehicles to collectively replace frontline workforces. “Our role is to bring that all together – teams of robots flying, driving, scanning, capturing data and bringing it all back to a central data points to be managed, then automating the insights from the data as well,” says Hrabar. The ambition is to remove humans from the actual mining loop altogether and instead use human talent and capabilities in the analysis of the data. “We’re already working in that space,” he adds, citing the 2021 Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) subterranean challenge, a global robotics initiative that encourages new approaches to map, navigate and search underground environments, namely in combat operations or disaster response situations. For the challenge – which pits the world’s top robotics companies against each other – Emesent came full circle and teamed up with the CSIRO, which provided a tank-top robot to carry Emesent’s drone to its launch site. “From there, we would fly around and share maps in real time between the drone and ground robots,” says Hrabar, adding that the exercise also featured robotic ‘walking dogs’ capable of carrying sensors, building maps and sharing data too. “So that’s definitely a little vision of the future.” ●
Hovermap creates a 3D map in real time so that drones can safely self-navigate.
1.8kg
Weight of Emesent’s Hovermap technology, making it easily portable and compatible with smaller drones such as the DJI M210.
Emesent 31
Emesent
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