SURFACE DRILLING
Drilling
more
metres
From autonomy to drill
optimisation technology
and fundamental design
improvements in the
form of new models,
surface production
drilling is advancing,
reports Paul Moore,
while in coring, new
innovations are allowing
far less manual handling
Komatsu’s new 44XT and
77XR drill models
I
t’s been a very busy period in terms of
surface drilling technology with autonomous
drilling gathering pace at a number of sites
and a number of new models being launched
notably by Komatsu and Caterpillar, all
coinciding with the market uptick and a lot more
blasthole drilling activity from coal to copper. As
with autonomous trucks, autonomous drill use
is showing real results. In its 2017 annual
report, Anglo American-owned Kumba Iron Ore
states that at the Kolomela mine, total tonnes
mined increased by 12% to 71.8 Mt (2016: 64
Mt). Waste mined was 55.6 Mt (2016: 50.2 Mt),
an increase of 11%, supporting higher
production levels. Kolomela’s production was
9% higher at 13.9 Mt (2016: 12.7 Mt), reflecting
productivity improvements. Productivity and
efficiencies of the Kolomela drill fleet increased
by 20% with the introduction of automated
drilling technology. Kolomela uses FLANDERS
FREEDOM for Drills – ARDVARC full autonomy
technology (see attached image for the system
details).
Epiroc autonomy brings benefits to
Peñasquito
Goldcorp’s Peñasquito mine in Mexico is one of
the pioneering mines that have opted to switch
from manual drills to Epiroc autonomous drills,
and during the introduction many benefits have
become clear including improvements in staff
safety, improvements in precision, reduced
The Kolomela mine has been running a fleet of six Cat drills fully autonomously with the FLANDERS
FREEDOM for Drills - ARDVARC control system since early 2017. This image is from a perimeter
camera video showing all six drills operating on the same bench with no operators on board. The
fleet is run from two remote Command Centres by two operators
International Mining | APRIL 2018
operational costs, higher productivity and
higher production. The autonomous Epiroc Pit
Viper drills at Peñasquito operate robotically
and completely unmanned. Rather than working
in the active, busy mining environment,
operators safely monitor the drills from a
remote operations station thousands of feet
away from the drills. Other safety features
include proximity detection that stops the drill if
anyone gets close, and geofencing that ensures
the drill stays within its designated working
area. In addition to improving safety, the Epiroc
autonomous drills raise the level of hole quality
and productivity. By performing repetetive tasks
without interruption, the autonomous drills
keep production moving. Epiroc points out that
there is no real limit to the distance to the
operations station.
Herman Krause, Implementations Manager,
Automation at Epiroc: “For example, we have a
site in Australia where the operator is sitting in
Perth operating machines 1,400 km away from
the mine.” Krause adds: “It will drill the holes
exactly the way you have told it to do and take
no breaks and productivity gets pushed up with
that. We can do a full, complete drill cycle, plus
we can do row-to-row transitions within that
drill pattern without any assistance of the
operator required.” On setting up he adds:
“Very little time is used for training because
whatever the operator was used to and saw in
the cab, he sees in the ops station. We’re using
exactly the same controls, exactly the same
monitor, so it’s very familiar.” Moving operators
out of the cab and into an operations station