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UAV INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS

Mining, quarries, aggregates

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Fixed-wing drones allow mine surveying teams to safely and efficiently capture rich datasets for multiple applications across mining operations. High-accuracy drone mapping and surveying can be used to create photo-realistic 3D models or digital twins of mining operations, earthworks projects and more to better inform decision making.

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What are the benefits of drones in mining, quarries and aggregates?

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What are the applications of drones in mining, quarries and aggregates?

Stockpile Measurement
Stockpile measurement

Stockpile monitoring and inventory are key in open pit operations. Drone data can be used to quickly calculate complex volumes with precision and without risk to the surveyor.

Mine Management
Mine management and planning

Frequent high accuracy data collection allows better monitoring of site occupation, soil conditions, and traffic management. This data can also be used to design and optimize haulage roads and tailings facilities.

Site Monitoring
Site monitoring

Accurate drone data can be used to monitor slope stability, tailings facilities, the bench and bench face, and for environmental monitoring to prevent catastrophic accidents.

Water Management
Water management

Drones can help with effective mine water management to improve operational performance by controlling water supply, accumulation and extraction, balance, storage, condition monitoring, and managing adverse hydrological changes through mapping outputs.

Inaccessible Areas
Inaccessible areas inspection

Drones reduce the risks of mapping inaccessible areas in quarries and mines. By deploying a fixed-wing mapping drone mine staff can spend more time safely inspecting the data outputs.

Asset Management
Asset management and security

Drones can be used to monitor a mine’s perimeter for security breaches or for general asset monitoring and management.

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What types of drone data outputs can you expect?

Drone data output depends on the sensor and processing software. Select a sensor based on your data requirements. Your sensor choice will determine the drone you need to carry this payload. Typical drone data outputs you can expect from eBee fixed-wing drones, MicaSense and senseFly sensors and Measure Ground Control software include:

Orthomosaic map

A geospatially accurate and detailed 2D representation of a site. Accurate orthomosaic maps are crucial to mining companies to monitor site occupation and measure the distance between points.

Digital Surface Model (DSM)

DSMs take 2.5D information to give an accurate elevation representation of the mining site. This detailed model is valuable for water management, measuring a pit’s depth, and monitoring slope stabili

3D mesh map

A three-dimensional texture (mesh) map with X, Y, Z data displays a site’s surfaces, walls and edges with high precision and is useful for inspecting inaccessible zones, modeling vertical faces, and detecting issues beforehand.

Point clouds

Point cloud maps comprise millions of individual points featuring X, Y, Z geospatial coordinates and with associated RGB values, and are used to calculate stockpile volumes and other distance measurements.

Contour maps

Topographic maps take X and Y coordinates from the aerial drone data to generate precise contour intervals. The mining industry benefits from these contour line outputs for slope monitoring.

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What software do you need?

eMotion Software

eMotion software is a leading drone software solution for flight planning, geotagging and photo stitching. From here the imagery can be exported for further processing in Pix4D and other software.

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PIX 4D Fields

PIX4Dmapper, PIX4Dsurvey and PIX4Dcloud photogrammetry software are popular solutions for stockpile measurement and to generate cut/fill maps.

Measure Ground Control

Measure Ground Control can be used to manage a drone fleet, as well as to process multispectral imagery from MicaSense sensors.

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Relevant Resources