News

Students’ Mining3 semester a great learning experience

Mining3 had the pleasure of working with six outstanding Bachelor of Engineering (Honours)/Master of Engineering (BE (Hons)/ME)* University of Queensland students in the first half of 2018 during their semester-long industry placement—offering them a great opportunity to grow professionally and personally by working alongside and being mentored by experienced researchers on current projects. One such […]

Read More

Cave mining 2040: advancing cave mining to meet future needs

Prof Gideon Chitombo, Mining3 Technology Leader – Cave Mining Cave mining and deep exploration drilling are the future of the mining industry as surface orebodies become scarcer and discoveries at depth more common. Effective and efficient ways of accessing orebodies below depths of 500 m need to be a key focus for the mining industry […]

Read More

Setting the standards for proximity detection systems

Avoiding collisions on a mine site remains an ongoing challenge for the mining industry. While there are numerous collision management systems available, there is limited ability to confidently prove the accuracy and reliability of these systems in production environments. With imminent legislation afoot that will enforce the installation of some form of proximity and/or collision […]

Read More

Expansion of Mining3’s global presence and key staff appointments

Following on from the 2016 union with CSIRO Mineral Resources to form Mining3, we stated our intention to make Mining3 an ‘innovation driver’ with strong international connections and global impact. Recent structural changes and key staff appointments are significant steps to strengthen our international engagement and deliver our ‘three pillar’ vision to transform the mining […]

Read More

In-situ recovery—a move towards ‘keyhole mining’

Human demand for travel; metal structures and their accompanying heating, cooling and lighting; and luxuries (or rather, necessities) of mobile phones and laptops has contributed to the estimated consumption of almost 0.5 million kilograms of rocks, metals, and fuels per person per lifetime. Approximately 15 different minerals are required to make a car, 30 minerals […]

Read More

Modelling for improved mine planning

Mining and metallurgy have traditionally been treated separately in metals production. For decades now, metallurgists have been able to use a popular simulation package and model their operation; identify bottlenecks in the process, explore potential solutions, and recommend the most appropriate changes to their process with a fairly high degree of confidence that the changes […]

Read More

Adopt or develop?

The mining industry is not dissimilar to other industries. In a bid to boost both productivity and safety, companies are actively moving towards process and software automation and applying robotic technology to mining vehicles and equipment. While some advances in automation will be unique to mining, the rise of self-driving cars presents substantial opportunities (and […]

Read More

Sensors comparison for underground void mapping by UAV’s

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being employed in a rapidly increasing number of applications in mining. This includes the emerging area of mapping underground void spaces such as stopes, which are otherwise inaccessible to humans, automated ground vehicles and survey technologies. Void mapping can provide both visual rock surface and 3D structural information about stopes, […]

Read More

Robotics and Computer Vision Roadmap

A Robotics and Computer Vision Roadmap for Australia Mining3 will be participating in the development of Australia’s first robotics and computer vision roadmap. The Australian Centre for Robotic Vision will be facilitating workshops with participants across research, industry and government to deliver the roadmap by May 2018. The Resources Roadmap workshops will be taking place […]

Read More

Mining3 demonstrates a new dimension in data handling

Imagine being able to control a drone inside a mineshaft from anywhere in the world without fear of it crashing or being able to track the metal material in a car chassis from ore to a finished product. Such things are fast becoming possible using a new 3D-based internet platform known as VoxelNET developed at […]

Read More