The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) will present a series of technology capabilities, ranging from robotics to sensor technologies at the CSIR stand at the premier Mining Indaba Expo taking place at Cape Town's International Convention Centre from 4 to 7 February 2013.

The CSIR offers multidisciplinary science, engineering and technology expertise to a range of industries. In terms of mining, it serves both as a research and development partner for the mining industry and a provider of technologically advanced solutions to complex challenges faced by the mining industry. The intention is to share the latest concepts and advances in the broad field of mining-related science, technology and engineering, with particular emphasis on how technology innovations can be utilised, better integrated and expanded to address some of the mining industry challenges in Africa and beyond its borders.

Drawing on a multidisciplinary skills base for relevant solutions

CSIR Centre for Mining Innovation Manager, Dr Declan Vogt, says that the CSIR’s range of multidisciplinary competences is particularly valuable in the context of mining. “Competences in diverse fields such as sensors, robotics, smart materials, laser technology and information and communications technology, all add up when it comes to addressing challenges in this domain,” he says.

Mine safety can be improved through research into fundamentals like mine seismic events, but also through the implementation of better sensing and management systems. For example, Vogt explains, monitoring the start of failures can provide immediate warning to workers of impending rockfalls.

He notes: “The safety challenge can also be met through improved understanding of people and how to manage them for maximum productivity, not for maximum short-term effort that results in stress and accidents. Improved accident investigation techniques can help to get to the root cause, rather than just being used to apportion blame.”

“There is an enormous health challenge, particularly for dust and silicosis, that requires research into sources and control of silica dust; improving the use of personal protective equipment; the combination effects of different occupational stressors; how to monitor workers for stress; and improving procedures for heat acclimatisation.”

On the productivity side, Vogt says, research has delivered tools like borehole radar that predicts what the rock mass is going to do ahead of mining, so that mining can be planned with no surprises. Manual techniques can be aided by mechanisation and mechanised techniques can be automated, improving the quality of mining, and removing workers from the immediate danger at the face. In the future, techniques of narrow stope mining can liberate huge quantities of gold in the Witwatersrand that are not economic using current mining techniques.

Tele-operated mining platform, mining robot, and more

The CSIR will demonstrate via live streaming, a semi-autonomous tele-operated mining platform which will be remotely operated from the Mining Indaba Expo. The robot will be based at the CSIR in Pretoria while operators at the exhibit will take it through its paces using the latest technologies. This demonstration simulates the mining environment where a platform operates semi-autonomously in an underground environment. A prototype robot platform capable of operating underground in narrow stopes will also be on display at the Mining Indaba Expo.

In addition, the CSIR will demonstrate its GOAFWARN instrument, a local area seismic sensor that can be used to warn of an impending roof fall in a coal mine. Such a roof fall is called a ‘goaf’ in South Africa. The core technology in GOAFWARN is also suitable for many other real-time monitoring applications in mines – including closure sensing, environmental sensing, etc. – determining re-entry times for development ends, and many more.