MINING DRONES
This massive cavity was mapped autonomously at the K + S operation in a single mission using the ExynAero drone solution
Powered by ExynAI ’ s multi-sensor fusion capabilities , gas sensor readings are captured while the robot is in flight and displayed in real time via a ruggedised tablet , Exyn explained . These sensor readings are saved with precise coordinates in a high-fidelity point cloud that can be exported and examined in a variety of mining software .
Jabrayan says a lot of mines have reached out to the companies since first presenting the
solution at the SME MineXchange Annual Conference & Expo in Salt Lake City .
“ They are interested in the benefits such a solution could provide in terms of safety and productivity ,” he said . “ By flying the gas sensing drone underground soon after a blast , it could take the necessary readings and issue a notice to another system that it is safe to re-enter the area .”
This could see more mines shift away from reentry processes based on out-of-date manual gas readings , to a system that is much more accurate and shaves – potentially – hours off operational downtime .
Exyn is closing in on a long-term trial
agreement with at least one miner in Australia looking to test out this gas-sensing drone solution , according to Jabrayan .
“ The long-term plan is to develop a drone-in-abox solution that can reside underground and be flown immediately after a blast to offer the quickest possible readings ,” he said . “ Remote autonomous mapping of this type could see Exyn provide data to shift operators as they are heading underground , allowing them to get a picture of the environment ahead of reaching the location .”
The incorporation of such data into mine site operational processes could see drone-based solutions become vital to the running of mines in the future , and Exyn , through its post-processing pipeline , ExSLAM , is looking to enable this .
ExSLAM extracts the raw cloud from robot logs and refines it for third-party software , using a factor graph optimisation algorithm to create low-drift point cloud maps .
Jabrayan says the company continually receives plaudits from customers about the ease of use of this solution , explaining that Exyn is one of the few companies that georeferences its maps inside an existing coordinate frame .
“ From there , we are able to detect all the survey points , download them , georeference them and push the data to any end-user software ,” he said .
Exyn , Jabrayan says , is software agnostic when
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� autonomously beyo nd visual-line-of-sight to capture critical data from dangerous , hard toreach environments .
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