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Robots move into the mining business
TECHNOLOGY
It’s dirty work – just the job for RoboTruck Ian Waldie/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Mining is back-breaking and downright dangerous, so bring on the AIs
the country’s Department of Mineral Resources. “The guys don’t do the entry inspections properly, we know that, and there are fatalities as a result of this,” says Declan Vogt of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Auckland Park, Johannesburg, South Africa. To keep miners out of harm’s way, Vogt and colleagues have built a robot that can navigate the 1-metre-high tunnels on tank-like treads and scan rock faces for weaknesses with a thermal camera. “Rock that is firmly attached to its surroundings will cool more slowly than rock that is broken,” says Vogt. When weaknesses are spotted, the robot can tap on them with a long arm, and use microphones to listen to the sound it makes. Onboard neural network software trained by mine inspectors will recognise if the area is safe. If it seems dangerous, the robot will tag the hanging wall with spray paint, so human crews can bolt the rock or secure it with supports.
Small is big
Michael Moore and Michael Reilly
TRUCKS nearly as tall as threestorey buildings are a common sight rumbling through the dusty, red-hued landscape of the Pilbara region in Australia. These haulers, each of which can carry up to 500 tonnes of iron ore, scarcely seem like a tech revolution in the making. But look carefully at some of them as they twist their way up the unpaved mining roads to reach the orecrushing facilities: the cabs are empty of human occupants. The trucks are part of mining giant Rio Tinto’s Mine of the 18 | NewScientist | 28 July 2012
Future initiative, which is based at the remote West Angelas iron mine. The firm is betting $500 million that robots are the future of mining. Rio is far from alone – mining companies from Chile to South Africa to Scandinavia are getting in on the act, too. As the global population continues to climb, the demand for resources including coal, iron and gold is growing at a furious pace. The only way to meet that demand, the reasoning goes, is to turn over the dirty, back-breaking and often perilous job of mining raw materials to artificially intelligent
The team’s robot, which they plan to demonstrate in March next year, is just the beginning, though. “Our vision is of a fleet of small robots doing various tasks,” including mining and hauling ore, –Mining, the easy way– Vogt says. South Africa’s gold production from many of the easy-to-reach systems that will increase big veins, less than 3.5 kilometres production while making the below the surface, is dwindling. industry safer for people. There is much more gold deeper South Africa’s famously deep down, which companies like gold and platinum mines are still AngloGold Ashanti are planning mostly worked by people. Each to access with their own day after blasting is complete, a autonomous systems. But Vogt foreman descends into the fresh says the real prize is in shallow tunnels, tapping the roof and veins 10 to 20 centimetres thick, listening for a hollow thud that much too narrow for humans to could indicate a hanging wall is mine economically. Teams of in danger of collapsing. 10 little robots, say, could drill But entry inspections are often the ore or blast it with pulses of rushed, because miners’ pay is electricity, then haul back tied to hitting benchmarks in a 1 to 2 litres of rock at a time into timely fashion. Some 14 miners tunnels accessible by miners. That have died already this year in vision is still a decade away, Vogt such “ground falls”, according to
admits, barring a breakthrough too (see “There be gold in them from one of the many private thar rocks”). Part of Rio Tinto’s firms thought to be working on plan includes a giant autonomous the problem, who remain tightdrill rig that can sink a series of lipped on the subject. boreholes in an area of interest. By Where some are thinking small, recording how the rock resists the other mining outfits are already drill bit, the rig can map what getting on with very big plans. kinds of rock it has penetrated, Swedish firm Sandvik, for helping to build a threeexample, has deployed a mixture dimensional picture of what’s of autonomous heavy equipment underground. and robot vehicles in several “This is the most valuable mines around the world over the aspect of the autonomous drill,” last few years. says Andy Stokes, Rio Tinto’s head Beneath the surface, autonomy takes on a new layer of complexity. “Within the next decade, mines will be designed Out of sight of GPS satellites, to accommodate robots robots have to navigate in a instead of people” different way. Vogt’s team is planning to use a series of beacons of mining automation. “The data that emit ultrasonic and RF it provides allows us to focus our signals simultaneously. Because efforts on the areas with the best radio waves travel much faster minerals and gives us a constantly than sound, the difference in updated, detailed picture of the arrival times lets the robots ore body.” deduce where they are in the If all goes as planned, within mine. Sandvik’s Automine the next decade some mines will system, on the other hand, relies on maintaining contact with staff be designed not to suit people, but to accommodate the needs above ground, who control the and abilities of robots. That will vehicles remotely using Wi-Fi. mean faster extraction of The drones are primarily for resources around the clock, seven grunt work: loading, hauling and days a week, year in and year out – unloading, with active mining and initial surveying still a human all to feed humanity’s growing endeavour. But that could change appetite for what lies beneath. n
There be gold in them thar rocks A robot geologist is being developed that can identify rocks at a glance. The system uses a hyperspectral camera, which is sensitive to both visible and infrared light, to determine a rock’s optical fingerprint, including what minerals are in the rock, and in what quantities. Sven Schneider at the University of Sydney in Australia and a team of researchers trained the camera by photographing samples of rock from an open-pit iron mine in Australia and teaching it which optical fingerprints corresponded to certain rock types. They then tested it by scanning rock outcrops in different parts of the same mine.
The system correctly identified rock type, and accurately accessed how much of a target mineral was in each sample – in this case, those rich in iron. “In some ways the system is better than a geologist,” says Schneider. “For example, a geologist might not be able to visually determine the specific minerals in a sample. But this system would be able to identify and provide quantitative estimates of abundance of many minerals.” The work, which was partially funded by Rio Tinto, was presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Saint Paul, Minnesota in May.
One Per Cent
Jeff Vinnick/Getty
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
Chip tracks footballers’ every move Get the feeling your team’s star player isn’t pulling their weight? Next season, US football fans will know for sure, as players in all 19 Major League Soccer (MLS) teams will wear a chip underneath their shirt that tracks heart rate, speed, acceleration and where they are on the field. The MLS-Adidas project will create the world’s first so-called smart league. All the information will be available for fans and team coaches to view on an iPad app, letting them compare each player’s performance and see who is coasting through the game – and who is busting a gut to win.
3D print your way out of jail Unlike the lock on your front door, handcuffs don’t use individually patterned keys. Now, a German security researcher who goes by the name of “Ray” has found a way out for high-tech criminals – print your own key. Speaking at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York last week, Ray said he bought a key for UK firm Chubb’s handcuffs on eBay, where they occasionally appear for sale. He created a 3D computer model with the exact dimensions for each key, which he then duplicated using a 3D printer. Ray now plans to upload the Chubb key model to Thingiverse, a 3D-printing repository.
Birth of the digital bacteria An entire bacterium has been recreated on a computer for the first time. Researchers at Stanford University in California modelled the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium – which only has 525 genes – by programming it with 1900 experimentally observed behaviours and molecular interactions taken from scientific literature. They found the behaviours of the 525 genes could be described by 28 algorithms, each governing the behaviour of a software module modelling a different biological process. The finding means researchers will soon be able to modify models of an organism’s genome entirely on a computer screen.
For breaking tech news go to: newscientist.com/onepercent
28 July 2012 | NewScientist | 19
It’s dirty work – just the job for RoboTruck Ian Waldie/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Mining is back-breaking and downright dangerous, so bring on the AIs
the country’s Department of Mineral Resources. “The guys don’t do the entry inspections properly, we know that, and there are fatalities as a result of this,” says Declan Vogt of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Auckland Park, Johannesburg, South Africa. To keep miners out of harm’s way, Vogt and colleagues have built a robot that can navigate the 1-metre-high tunnels on tank-like treads and scan rock faces for weaknesses with a thermal camera. “Rock that is firmly attached to its surroundings will cool more slowly than rock that is broken,” says Vogt. When weaknesses are spotted, the robot can tap on them with a long arm, and use microphones to listen to the sound it makes. Onboard neural network software trained by mine inspectors will recognise if the area is safe. If it seems dangerous, the robot will tag the hanging wall with spray paint, so human crews can bolt the rock or secure it with supports.
Small is big
Michael Moore and Michael Reilly
TRUCKS nearly as tall as threestorey buildings are a common sight rumbling through the dusty, red-hued landscape of the Pilbara region in Australia. These haulers, each of which can carry up to 500 tonnes of iron ore, scarcely seem like a tech revolution in the making. But look carefully at some of them as they twist their way up the unpaved mining roads to reach the orecrushing facilities: the cabs are empty of human occupants. The trucks are part of mining giant Rio Tinto’s Mine of the 18 | NewScientist | 28 July 2012
Future initiative, which is based at the remote West Angelas iron mine. The firm is betting $500 million that robots are the future of mining. Rio is far from alone – mining companies from Chile to South Africa to Scandinavia are getting in on the act, too. As the global population continues to climb, the demand for resources including coal, iron and gold is growing at a furious pace. The only way to meet that demand, the reasoning goes, is to turn over the dirty, back-breaking and often perilous job of mining raw materials to artificially intelligent
The team’s robot, which they plan to demonstrate in March next year, is just the beginning, though. “Our vision is of a fleet of small robots doing various tasks,” including mining and hauling ore, –Mining, the easy way– Vogt says. South Africa’s gold production from many of the easy-to-reach systems that will increase big veins, less than 3.5 kilometres production while making the below the surface, is dwindling. industry safer for people. There is much more gold deeper South Africa’s famously deep down, which companies like gold and platinum mines are still AngloGold Ashanti are planning mostly worked by people. Each to access with their own day after blasting is complete, a autonomous systems. But Vogt foreman descends into the fresh says the real prize is in shallow tunnels, tapping the roof and veins 10 to 20 centimetres thick, listening for a hollow thud that much too narrow for humans to could indicate a hanging wall is mine economically. Teams of in danger of collapsing. 10 little robots, say, could drill But entry inspections are often the ore or blast it with pulses of rushed, because miners’ pay is electricity, then haul back tied to hitting benchmarks in a 1 to 2 litres of rock at a time into timely fashion. Some 14 miners tunnels accessible by miners. That have died already this year in vision is still a decade away, Vogt such “ground falls”, according to
admits, barring a breakthrough too (see “There be gold in them from one of the many private thar rocks”). Part of Rio Tinto’s firms thought to be working on plan includes a giant autonomous the problem, who remain tightdrill rig that can sink a series of lipped on the subject. boreholes in an area of interest. By Where some are thinking small, recording how the rock resists the other mining outfits are already drill bit, the rig can map what getting on with very big plans. kinds of rock it has penetrated, Swedish firm Sandvik, for helping to build a threeexample, has deployed a mixture dimensional picture of what’s of autonomous heavy equipment underground. and robot vehicles in several “This is the most valuable mines around the world over the aspect of the autonomous drill,” last few years. says Andy Stokes, Rio Tinto’s head Beneath the surface, autonomy takes on a new layer of complexity. “Within the next decade, mines will be designed Out of sight of GPS satellites, to accommodate robots robots have to navigate in a instead of people” different way. Vogt’s team is planning to use a series of beacons of mining automation. “The data that emit ultrasonic and RF it provides allows us to focus our signals simultaneously. Because efforts on the areas with the best radio waves travel much faster minerals and gives us a constantly than sound, the difference in updated, detailed picture of the arrival times lets the robots ore body.” deduce where they are in the If all goes as planned, within mine. Sandvik’s Automine the next decade some mines will system, on the other hand, relies on maintaining contact with staff be designed not to suit people, but to accommodate the needs above ground, who control the and abilities of robots. That will vehicles remotely using Wi-Fi. mean faster extraction of The drones are primarily for resources around the clock, seven grunt work: loading, hauling and days a week, year in and year out – unloading, with active mining and initial surveying still a human all to feed humanity’s growing endeavour. But that could change appetite for what lies beneath. n
There be gold in them thar rocks A robot geologist is being developed that can identify rocks at a glance. The system uses a hyperspectral camera, which is sensitive to both visible and infrared light, to determine a rock’s optical fingerprint, including what minerals are in the rock, and in what quantities. Sven Schneider at the University of Sydney in Australia and a team of researchers trained the camera by photographing samples of rock from an open-pit iron mine in Australia and teaching it which optical fingerprints corresponded to certain rock types. They then tested it by scanning rock outcrops in different parts of the same mine.
The system correctly identified rock type, and accurately accessed how much of a target mineral was in each sample – in this case, those rich in iron. “In some ways the system is better than a geologist,” says Schneider. “For example, a geologist might not be able to visually determine the specific minerals in a sample. But this system would be able to identify and provide quantitative estimates of abundance of many minerals.” The work, which was partially funded by Rio Tinto, was presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Saint Paul, Minnesota in May.
One Per Cent
Jeff Vinnick/Getty
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
Chip tracks footballers’ every move Get the feeling your team’s star player isn’t pulling their weight? Next season, US football fans will know for sure, as players in all 19 Major League Soccer (MLS) teams will wear a chip underneath their shirt that tracks heart rate, speed, acceleration and where they are on the field. The MLS-Adidas project will create the world’s first so-called smart league. All the information will be available for fans and team coaches to view on an iPad app, letting them compare each player’s performance and see who is coasting through the game – and who is busting a gut to win.
3D print your way out of jail Unlike the lock on your front door, handcuffs don’t use individually patterned keys. Now, a German security researcher who goes by the name of “Ray” has found a way out for high-tech criminals – print your own key. Speaking at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York last week, Ray said he bought a key for UK firm Chubb’s handcuffs on eBay, where they occasionally appear for sale. He created a 3D computer model with the exact dimensions for each key, which he then duplicated using a 3D printer. Ray now plans to upload the Chubb key model to Thingiverse, a 3D-printing repository.
Birth of the digital bacteria An entire bacterium has been recreated on a computer for the first time. Researchers at Stanford University in California modelled the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium – which only has 525 genes – by programming it with 1900 experimentally observed behaviours and molecular interactions taken from scientific literature. They found the behaviours of the 525 genes could be described by 28 algorithms, each governing the behaviour of a software module modelling a different biological process. The finding means researchers will soon be able to modify models of an organism’s genome entirely on a computer screen.
For breaking tech news go to: newscientist.com/onepercent
28 July 2012 | NewScientist | 19