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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SIMS (Sustainable Intelligent Mining Systems)

Teaser

Summary

Vision: The SIMS project aspires to create a long lasting impact on the way we test and demonstrate new technology and solutions for the mining industry. With a selected consortium ranging from mining companies, equipment and system suppliers to top-class universities; the SIMS project will boost development and innovation through joint activities aiming at creating a sustainable intelligent mining system.
SIMS aims to develop, test and demonstrate new innovative technologies within the designated consortium, consisting of well-developed mining operations, selected due to their maturity regarding innovative technologies, world-leading equipment and system suppliers, highly specialized SMEs and top-class universities. The consortium origins in the EIT Raw Materials partnership, and has joined for this proposal due to the common challenges and needs.

Objectives:
Efficiency - To increase resource efficiency and competitiveness.
Safety - To reduce the risk of rock falls and exposure of workers to hazardous situations.
Environment -To minimize environmental impact of mining operations.
Trust - To increase public trust, awareness and acceptance for mining.
How: We address the call intelligent mining on land and aim to develop, test and demonstrate relevant technologies all aiming at realizing the vision of the intelligent mining system. To meet the project vision and support EU strategies as outlined in the call we have addressed the project objectives by selecting pilot test areas and tests that will support this.

Work performed

All work performed in the SIMS project for the first 18 months is directed towards successfully completing Deliverables and Milestones.
These have been concisely summarized per WP:

WP 1 - Ethics deals with informed consent, data collection, worker health and safety and includes a list of laboratories within the SIMS project. These four deliverables have been submitted and approved.
WP 2 is responsible for the Outreach of the SIMS project and has been extremely helpful in disseminating SIMS information to the general public and all relevant stakeholders. A total of six deliverables have been submitted and approved. These include VR / AR environments established, stakeholder platforms, a detailed plan, dissemination of year 1 results and first communication tools developed.
WP 3 has successfully submitted the required three deliverables where the main focus has been building up to delivering 5G enabled performance for critical automation and robotics. Demonstrations, uses cases and benchmarks were required to realize this achievement.
WP 4 began by submitting mining based modelling and process control architectures followed by an on-line production control and fleet management system. The Virtual Mine (changed to Digital Twin) has also been in operation.
WP 5 has successfully removed one deliverable in the first amendment; The Robotized Brokk Scaler in Operation. Two deliverables have been successfully submitted and include application scenarios and a demonstration of putting a hose into drilled holes by the charging machine.
WP 6 has been able to submit its one deliverable on time which is the Diesel-free mining machines are operational.
WP 7\'s definition of system requirements for boundary layer and material detection has been successfully submitted.
WP 8 had three deliverables to submit including a baseline study for each technology project, a continuous analysis for each technology project for both phase 1 and phase 2.
WP 9 has gathered the required information from each WP in order to submit the SIMS progress report for year 1.

All milestones required from each WP have been submitted with the exception of WP 7 MS 14 (first blasting using scheme on programmable electronic detonators) where the issue with KGHM CUPRUM buying explosives has created some delays. A solution here has been found and this milestone will be delivered in 2019.

Many of these deliverables have been video documented by the Outreach team to be later used in SIMS Stories which describe the journey of each WP and its accompanying deliverables and milestones. These are available on the SIMS youtube channel.

Final results

SIMS strongly believes that further digitalization, robotics and automation will contribute to safer mines, fewer emissions to air and water, and higher efficiency. These factors contribute to sustainable mining, the unlocking of potential mineral reserves, and a higher acceptance of mining activities and a social license to operate. The SIMS vision is to enable a direct and measurable impact to sustainable mining.

We believe that:
a) Autonomous machines can increase production by 40-80%.
b) Improvements in mine control centers would increase production by 10-20%.
c) Ventilation costs can be decreased by 50% by using Ventilation on Demand and the use of battery-powered vehicles in place of diesel underground. The latter will save energy and decrease CO2-emissions considerably, on the order of 250 tonnes/y per underground machine or 4000 tonnes/a in a typical 1 Mton/y underground metal mine.
d) New and cleaner technology will make mining jobs safer, healthier, and more attractive.
e) Improvements in technology and work processes will make the mining industry a trusted partner for the development of wealth and prosperity in the society.

Description of Impact areas and selected pilot actions;
Human interaction: Application of new technology may have huge impacts, not only on business models and the external views on the mining sector, but on the internal organization of the work as well. The future mine operation is more and better monitored and controlled when manual labor, for reasons of efficiency and safety, is remote-controlled or automated. As an umbrella for the SIMS demonstrations, a Virtual/Augmented Reality Test Site is set up (see WP2), where the planned pilot actions at selected mine sites are visualized and where vocational safety and operational training and education can be performed.

Some of the wider Societal implications for the SIMS project include increased safety for mining employees as we aim to move human labor from dangerous environments to safe attractive workplaces where they can monitor and control the automation equipment. By achieving this goal SIMS also investigates how this affects the \'typical\' mining employee via WP 8. By moving employees from dangerous areas of underground operation, SIMS contributes positively to the general mining working environment. Some of the automation solutions in SIMS still require human intervention from time to time, such as the HP Boltec in WP 7. Here we have removed one step in the bolting process which takes away the dangerous handling of heavy drill bits where the danger of pinching is quite high. Here SIMS contributes in a positive safe manner, allowing machines to do the heavy and hard work while the operator can monitor the situation. The Battery Mining Machines will contribute to a cleaner air environment in the underground mine which eliminates the diesel particulate, hence workers will not be breathing these particles in. Again, contributing positively to the health of each employee underground.