Whilst it’s exciting to see a haul truck or drill rig operating without an onboard operator, many humans are still involved remotely, issuing commands and responding to conflicts or changing conditions.
The efficiency and safety of modern mining operations have significantly improved in recent years due to rapid developments in the automation of mobile equipment but the full promise of automation will not be achieved until mobile equipment can make all movement decisions independently. Curtin University’s WA School of Mines lecturer Dr Roohollah Shirani Faradonbeh is building his career around solving these final pieces of the automation puzzle and using this research to instruct future mining engineers in the latest technologies they will encounter in the industry.
Dr Shirani Faradonbeh is particularly enthusiastic about completing the automation of production blast hole drill rigs. When manually given a path and hole sequence by a human, these drills can now tram between holes, set up, and drill with no further intervention. However, significant efficiency can still be gained when these drills plan their own optimised paths, regularly evaluating and updating based on changing conditions.
“Solving the path optimisation challenge for autonomous drill rigs is akin to tackling a classic travelling salesman problem, but in a dynamic and complex environment. By integrating advanced algorithms and real-time data analysis, we aim to revolutionise the efficiency and safety of mining operations. This project not only represents a significant leap towards fully autonomous mining but also provides a robust platform for future innovations in the industry,” Dr Shirani Faradonbeh said.
Joining Dr Shirani Faradonbeh from the WA School of Mines to tackle this challenge are Professor Erkan Topal, expert in modelling complex mining processes, and PhD candidate Mr Masoud Samaei who will undertake the primary data processing, model development and software coding tasks.
Of course, this final piece of the puzzle will not make a complete automation picture on its own. It will only click into place when combined with the years of development from a world leader in vendor-agnostic automation and control systems such as Flanders Inc. Since 1947, Flanders has been continually innovating the systems that power the industry and are now bringing their ARDVARC drill automation solution to this project. Currently installed on over 100 machines globally, ARDVARC is already delivering 30% increased efficiency and is the perfect platform with which to integrate the path planning optimisation software being developed by Dr Shirani Faradonbeh and his team. Director of Flanders’ Automation Centre of Excellence, Joshua Goodwin, had this insightful comment about what a successful automated dynamic path planner would do for Flanders.
“Having an algorithm that will be able to determine the most optimal path will not only be able to free up the controls of the autonomous system to focus on other tasks, but it will also ensure the machines is working as efficient as possible so our clients can get the most out of their systems.”
It was an easy decision for Trailblazer to support this project, with the partnership providing a clear pathway to the commercialisation of Curtin research whilst establishing an industry engagement opportunity for PhD candidate Masoud to spend time working alongside Flanders’ engineers for data collection and testing. We look forward to seeing what this team can accomplish together.
