When we talk about “mining” popular culture has a different association to older generations. At one time mining was a passport to an early grave. If the lifestyle didn’t kill you, the machines probably did. Nowadays, mining is still carried out in some pretty rough places. It’s hard to get connectivity underground. And the machines will still eat you.
If it’s all about digging for dollars, where is it at?
The Sharp End of IoT in mining & exploration is in the maintenance of heavy equipment. Depending on geology, you’re looking at: $150–$400 per metre for diamond drilling or $80–$200 per metre for RC drilling. Explosives don’t give much bang for buck either. Downtime on a haul truck or excavator can cost $20k–$150k per hour depending on the mine, because it backs up your processing speed. IoT sensors (vibration, oil viscosity, thermal, load) reduce unplanned downtime by significant margins. They also change your risk avoidance from reactive to pro-activity.
Worker Safety, Tracking & “Lone Worker” Systems
Mines are high-risk zones; poisonous gas pockets, blind spots for vehicles, inherent danger in the interaction of man and machine in low light, complex environments. We are still not at the stage of exceptional exo-skeletons or AIS underground. But we do have options…
BLE, UWB, or LoRa tags for personnel tracking. Geo-fenced danger zones (automated alarms), fall detection & motion inactivity alerts, collision avoidance between people and machines, gas sensors for methane, CO, NO₂, O₂ depletion. Some IoT vendors offer a full suite of employee protection sensors for danger zones.
Exploration & Remote Operations
Where IoT touches the front end is in addressing issues that plague exploration; remote sites, harsh weather conditions above the snow line or deep in dry deserts. It is perfect in cases where dispersed vehicles are miles away from the main base. One of the key pain points in any exploratory exercise is that you often have limited staff and a huge geographical range.
IoT helps with autonomous sensor stations (soil moisture, vibration, seismic, magnetics), Connected borehole logging tools, Satellite/LPWAN hybrid links for daily survey data returns, fleet tracking for exploration vehicles. The trick is to find a vendor that can build tools that work in the environment you’re exploring in (you can’t call the AA if it breaks down).
Environmental & Structural Monitoring
There have been many high loss situations in the mining, drilling and exploration sector. IoT gives early-warning capabilities that historically did not exist; slope stability monitoring (ground movement mm-by-mm), tailings dam sensors (moisture, pressure, vibration), seismic micro-event detection, air quality in tunnels, water leakage, contamination, acidity monitoring.
The wrap up on this one is very simple; we build IoT hardware for extreme conditions. The dictionary definition of tough conditions is the kind of place most mining and exploration companies are operating in. There is a lot of scope for high quality tools.
