Use of unmanned aerial vehicles to supplement conventional investigation methods for underground open void stability and mitigation

Preston, Ryan; Roy, Justin

doi:10.36487/acg_rep/1710_49_preston

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Therefore, following the desktop review, an extensive investigation of the underground was completed in 2016. During this investigation, borehole camera surveys were completed through existing historical exploration boreholes and underground unmanned aerial vehicle surveys and underground inspections were conducted from open-breakthrough locations of the development mining (Preston & Roy 2017). Finally, 10 boreholes were drilled from the 250 and 425 mining levels (approximately 90 and 140 mbgs) into underground areas where gaps remained after completion of the other investigation methods.…”

Section: Investigation and Compilation Of The History Of Mining The Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stabilising an underground void: monolithic construction using self-consolidating concrete

Pakula¹,

Preston²,

Kennard³

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the International Conference on Mine Closure

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In 2007, during a planned water level raise at the Giant Mine, which had recently been placed into care and maintenance, a large movement of fill occurred in a series of connected vertically stacked cut-and-fill stopes. The movement mobilised over 170,000 metric tonnes of previously placed unconsolidated rock and sand fill and left a 70,000 m 3 void separated from arsenic trioxide storage vaults, by a thin sill pillar. Review of historical mine plans and investigations onsite suggested that timber sill mats and bulkheads which had likely destabilised when the area became variably saturated during flooding, created a connection between remnant voids in the upper and lower mining horizons resulting in the void. Furthermore, it was determined that if the water level was changed again, with either a rise or drawdown that the rock and fill within the stope below the void could once again be mobilised, further reducing the stability of the void. The mine is to be remediated and closed and a permanent solution to stabilising this void, which is approximately 85 to 125 m below ground surface, was required. Given the lack of future underground access and a desire by the project proponent to reduce long-term monitoring and care requirements, a unique solution was required. While stabilising mine voids during active production mining or during mine closure activities, practitioners would typically utilise a cemented mine waste product such as cemented rockfill (CRF), cemented paste backfill (CPB) or cemented sand fill. Because of the potential for the previously placed sand and rockfill in the void to move deeper into the mine void and possibly destabilise the workings, a manufactured sill pillar that would stay in place should the material below it move was required. In this case, it was determined that the void span was sufficiently large that these types of materials would not be self-supporting should such a movement occur. Therefore, a self-consolidating concrete (SCC), also known as self-levelling concrete was used to manufacture a 16,600 m 3 (70 x 24 x 10 m) monolithic concrete sill pillar to be installed.

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Section: Investigation and Compilation Of The History Of Mining The Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stabilising an underground void: monolithic construction using self-consolidating concrete

Pakula¹,

Preston²,

Kennard³

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the International Conference on Mine Closure

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“…Flying robots (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles-UAVs) are a promising alternative to ground robots for subterranean operations (Freire and Cota, 2017;Preston and Roy, 2017;Rogers et al, 2017;Jones et al, 2019;Mansouri et al, 2019). As they fly, they are not impaired by obstacles or liquid on the floor.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most of the work about subterranean exploration has been focused on a single wheeled or tracked robot (Morris et al, 2006) that is coupled with a SLAM algorithm to build a 3-D map (Thrun et al, 2004). Single UAVs are, however, increasingly tested in mines and they show promising results (Freire and Cota, 2017;Preston and Roy, 2017;Jones et al, 2019;Mansouri et al, 2019). They have, for instance, been deployed by many teams during the DARPA Subterranean Challenge (https://www.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signal-Based Self-Organization of a Chain of UAVs for Subterranean Exploration

et al. 2021

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Miniature multi-rotors are promising robots for navigating subterranean networks, but maintaining a radio connection underground is challenging. In this paper, we introduce a distributed algorithm, called U-Chain (for Underground-chain), that coordinates a chain of flying robots between an exploration drone and an operator. Our algorithm only uses the measurement of the signal quality between two successive robots and an estimate of the ground speed based on an optic flow sensor. It leverages a distributed policy for each UAV and a Kalman filter to get reliable estimates of the signal quality. We evaluate our approach formally and in simulation, and we describe experimental results with a chain of 3 real miniature quadrotors (12 by 12 cm) and a base station.

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“…637972, project ResiBots) and the ANR/DGA ASTRID project "Proxilearn". 1 Universit de Technologie de Compigne (UTC), France 2 Inria, CNRS, Université de Lorraine, LORIA, Nancy F-54000, France 3 Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, ISM, Marseille F-13009, France 4 Université de Lorraine, CNRS, LORIA, Nancy F-54000, France Corresponding author: jean-baptiste.mouret@inria.fr subterranean environments [8], [9]. In particular, a typical signal such as the Crazyflie's 2.4GHz radio miniature system does not penetrate large amount of rocks and even bounces in metallic pipes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signal-based self-organization of a chain of UAVs for subterranean exploration

Laclau¹,

Tempez²,

Ruffier³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Miniature multi-rotors are promising robots for navigating subterranean networks, but maintaining a radio connection underground is challenging. In this paper, we introduce a distributed algorithm, called U-Chain (for Undergroundchain), that coordinates a chain of flying robots between an exploration drone and an operator. Our algorithm only uses the measurement of the signal quality between two successive robots as well as an estimate of the ground speed based on an optic flow sensor. We evaluate our approach formally and in simulation, and we describe experimental results with a chain of 3 real miniature quadrotors (12 by 12 cm) and a base station.

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Use of unmanned aerial vehicles to supplement conventional investigation methods for underground open void stability and mitigation

Cited by 5 publications

References 2 publications

Stabilising an underground void: monolithic construction using self-consolidating concrete

Stabilising an underground void: monolithic construction using self-consolidating concrete

Signal-Based Self-Organization of a Chain of UAVs for Subterranean Exploration

Signal-based self-organization of a chain of UAVs for subterranean exploration

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