Unmanned Systems Technology 022 | XOcean XO-450 l Radar systems l Space vehicles insight l Small Robot l BMPower FCPS l Prismatic HALE UAV l InterDrone 2018 show report l UpVision l Navigation systems

82 T he potential for unmanned aerial systems aimed at the mining industry is well- founded. They can integrate powerful mapping sensors while needing far less power and maintenance compared with manned helicopters or road vehicles. The advances in and spread of analytics software, along with ever-growing computer processing speeds, also means collected imagery can be exploited more efficiently than ever before. However, the spread of UAVs for photogrammetry remains slower than the enormous industry predictions made in the recent past. It thus falls to UAS manufacturers and operators to serve up examples of what unmanned vehicles can achieve for mines and other resource assets. In one particularly grand example, Czech UAS operator UpVision travelled to Mongolia in the beginning of May 2018 to map the largest copper mine in Asia, near the city of Erdenet. There, with its UAV and critical ancillary equipment, it proceeded with a multi-stage plan to capture the necessary photography for generating a 3D map of the project area. Intel Sirius and Mavic Air To gather most of the image data, UpVision used a single Intel-MAVinci Sirius Classic UAV, of which the Rory Jackson explains the lengths one UAV operator had to go to in order to photograph and map the largest copper mine in Asia Mine sweeper October/November 2018 | Unmanned Systems Technology To minimise the effects of wind, flights were carried out between 6 am and 8 am, and between 6 pm and 8 pm (Photos courtesy of UpVision)