Project duration: 1 January 2018 – 01 April 2021

Objective

The main market for this project are underground mines using bolting rigs. Currently, bolt magazines are always loaded manually. A milestone in automation for the bolting procedure is to automate the bolt magazine reloading. This is a solution that is often asked for by mining companies and Atlas Copco will commercialize this Product. The new Product will improve safety in mines by removing the operators from unsecured areas.

Two strong global trends in the mining industry are the extraction of deeper ore deposits and increased automation. When going deeper the need for increased efficiency, productivity and safety are even more important and the solution to this is increased automation. The bolting procedure is the most advanced operation in the tunneling process and therefore often the bottleneck. The first step in automating the bolting procedure that we have identified is to remove the manual procedure to reload the bolt magazine and the need of camera surveillance.

The solution (technology)

This Project will deliver an automatic and robust solution for reloading bolt magazines and a camera solution to overview the procedure.

Partnership

  • Epiroc Rock Drills AB, Sweden (Lead partner)
  • Alfred Nobel science Park, Sweden
  • LTU Business AB, Sweden
  • Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB (LKAB) Sweden
  • Rheinisch-Westfaelische Technische Hochschule Aachen, (RWTH Aachen), Germany