Drilling into the deep unknown – a new era in mining exploration

Mining look similar all around the world. Machinery is being used however all deep mines suffer from the same problem. The temperature and the danger of collapsing of tunnels due to high pressures. The further down you go the warmer and more dangerous it becomes and eventually it will no longer be safe for humans to work.

The solution is to use fully autonomous machines which do not require oxygen, can withstand the hot bedrock, and can operate without human intervention. During this project novel concepts such as autonomous mining robots will be developed.

Mining robots

In the contemporary mining industry robots already exist, so what is so revolutionising? They are fully autonomous and smaller thus, as aforementioned, does not have human needs. Not needing human intervention also make the mining operation much safer for the workers.

Luleå University of Technology have carefully considered the environmental aspects of mining and by making the machine more efficient it contributes to making the mining industry, as well as the earth, a greener place.

The machines will be able to analyse the ore it extracts for grading whilst drilling. This means that ore does not have to be extracted and transported to a laboratory. Our robot friend can tell us if it is worth continuing drilling here, and if it is not, it will choose a new path and repeat the process.

Reaching the unreachable

Today you can dig to around a depth of 1.5-2 kilometres before it starts to become a hazardous environment. With these new autonomous machines there is no saying how deep we will be able to mine. This would make for a historic event, exploring what has thought to be unexplorable for far too long.

Originnally published at Robotics and Artificial INtelligence Group