Development of unmanned aerial vehicle systems for real-time mining data acquisition and decision making

近几十年来，采矿和矿物部门的技术发展取得了巨大进展。这些技术进步已为采矿业所接受，以便更有效地管理矿物资源。然而，考虑到采矿业面临的新挑战，包括：波动的市场条件、复杂和低品位的矿床、更严格的环境法规等，这些改进不足以确保该行业的长期可持续增长和生产力。矿物资源管理中通常采用的不连续和间歇的采矿过程监测方法以及根据部分信息和缺失事实作出的决策将不再适合处理复杂的采矿挑战。需要开发创新的解决方案来实时获取高分辨率采矿数据，以便做出有效的决策，最大限度地提高采矿过程的效率和盈利能力。该提案的主要目标是开发无人机（UAV）解决方案，用于实时，按需，高分辨率的采矿数据采集和决策。这将包括监测钻孔和爆破做法，以便实时分析岩石破碎情况，监测和评估爆破后渣土桩的矿石稀释情况，以及检查和监测地面挖掘和土方工程。本研究将无人机与传感技术相结合，实现了采矿过程的连续控制与优化。这项研究将在埃尔加洛1号露天矿进行，该露天矿由加拿大矿业公司麦克尤恩矿业（McEwen Mining）经营，该公司在世界各地有几家金矿和银矿开采业务。开发用于实时采矿数据采集和决策的创新解决方案将使多伦多大学（UofT）在采矿过程监测和优化领域取得重要的科学进展。它还允许McEwen Mining将这些先进技术充分整合到其当前的采矿作业中，以显着提高作业效率。

In recent decades, there has been tremendous progress in the development of technology for the mining and minerals sectors. These technology advances have been embraced by the mining industry for more efficient mineral resource management. However, given the new challenges facing the mining industry including: volatile market conditions, complex and lower grade ore deposits, tighter environmental regulations, etc., these improvements are insufficient to ensure long-term sustainable growth and productivity of the industry. Discontinuous and intermittent mining process monitoring approaches as well as decision making based on partial information and missing facts that are usually employed in mineral resource management, will be no longer suitable to address the complex mining challenges. Innovative solutions need to be developed for real-time acquisition of high-resolution mining data in order to make effective decisions to maximize the efficiency and profitability of mining process.The main goal of this proposal is to develop Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) solutions for real-time, on-demand, high-resolution mining data acquisition and decision making. This will involve monitoring drilling and blasting practices for real-time rock fragmentation analysis, monitoring and assessing ore dilution in post-blast muck piles and inspection and monitoring of surface excavations and earth works. Combining the UAV and sensing technologies in this study will enable continuous mining process control and optimization. The study will be conducted at the El Gallo 1 open pit mine, which is being operated by McEwen Mining, a Canadian mining company, with several gold and silver mining operations around the world. The development of innovative solutions for real-time mining data acquisition and decision making will allow the University of Toronto (UofT) to make essential scientific advances in the area of mining process monitoring and optimization. It also allows McEwen Mining to fully integrate these advanced technologies in its current mining operations to significantly enhance the efficiency of the operations.