RESOURCEFUL MINING ISSUE | 2022
TECHNOLOGY
gas detection from our new robot dog is very exciting,” said Rethabile Letlala, operations director of Dwyka Mining Services. Hazardous gases that accumulate underground are an invisible threat to mining teams who often don’t know they are in danger until it’s too late. This gas build-up is created through the exposed strata, blasting, daily ‘mucking’ and even runaway battery fires on critical machinery. Traditionally, gas levels are measured by the ventilation system at the return air raises or wearable sensors donned by miners. While this fixed infrastructure has saved countless lives, mobile autonomous inspection by aerial and ground robots of strategic areas before re-entry or in emergency situations is the next step to complete real-time coverage. With South Africa having many of the world’s deepest and hottest mines, the adoption of innovative solutions for ventilation, occupational health and environmental hazards and the use of proactive visualisation automation platforms are paramount for industry sustainability. “The established client base of Maestro Digital Mine environmental sensors will allow us to make the technology mobile for broader applications. We’re very excited about this integration with Maestro Digital Mine as a future partner payload for
Boston Dynamics’ Spot Enterprise solution and look forward to continually improving worker safety for whole-of-mine deployment with our new best friend Spot,” said Van Schoor. “Collaborating with our mud-in-boots partner, Dwyka Mining Services – who are always pushing the envelope with technology integration with pioneering brands like Boston Dynamics – is in turn pushing us to innovate and collaborate with our core purpose of enhancing lives by the pursuit of productivity and safety excellence,” said Michael Gribbons, CEO and co-founder of Maestro Digital Mine. “This relationship will open up immediate opportunities to Dwyka Mining Services and Maestro in Africa and extend mobile environmental monitoring to our current installations at over 170 mines in 38 countries globally using our patented, Edge-based IIoT sensor technologies once the solution is fully embedded.” “We are excited about extracting value from ‘no-go’ and ‘fly-low’ mining areas typical at the majority of narrow reef mining operations in Southern Africa where the use of enterprise GPS-denied drones becomes limited. The Spot Enterprise package allows us to access confined spaces and this information could be used to undertake remote gas inspections so that we can accelerate re-entry
The Spot Enterprise robot dog during the 1.6 km walk from the V&A Waterfront to the CTICC
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