UNEXMIN at the Real-Time Mining Conference

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Real-Time Mining kick-off

During the 10th and 11th of October, the UNEXMIN project was present in the Real-Time Mining conference, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. UNEXMIN was invited as one of the co-organizers of this conference, together with other three EU funded projects – ¡vamos!, SOLSA and Real-Time Mining – which provided a great opportunity to communicate the project, make contacts with stakeholders and establish valuable synergies for the future.

During the two days that the conference lasted, the present UNEXMIN partners made three presentations centered in the project: (1) an overview of UNEXMIN, (2) the development of the multispectral camera unit and (3) the development of the magnetic field unit.

The first presentation provided an overview of the project to the participants, focusing on the goals and impacts to be achieved and giving a view on the past, present and future developments in UNEXMIN, in particular regarding the development of the UX-1 robot. This presentation raised a lot of interest in the project, fact proven by the high amount of questions asked. The presentations about the multispectral and magnetic field units, more specific talks, related to the development of two of the most important scientific instruments for the robotic system, kept the interest on the project alive with even more questions. The engagement with the conference participants continued after the presentations, extending itself through the breaks.

The Real-Time Mining conference can be considered as a success for UNEXMIN: a lot of new interest was raised in the project; contacts and synergies have arisen with other projects and people; the conference participants praised the idea that the UNEXMIN consortium is trying to put on together and promised to have a closer look and follow the project in the future. These are all objectives of the UNEXMIN project and achieving them during a conference can only mean that is was a great success.

Right now, there is no autonomous underwater system capable of surveying and getting geological data from flooded mines and the UNEXMIN consortium is building the first to solve this major bottleneck. The first UX-1 prototype will be ready by mid-2018, in time for the Kaatiala trial in a real life environment! Be sure to follow the news!

UNEXMIN workshop at La Palma, Spain

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On the 3rd and 4th of October, 2017, the UNEXMIN consortium got together in the island of La Palma, Spain, to discuss some very important aspects of the project. Among these there were discussions on the current development of the project, the near future steps and the way to go when the time to exploit the results come – making the novel UNEXMIN technology available to the market.

The first day started with the always necessary discussions related to the developments of the project: past, present and future were all analysed. After this groundwork, the consortium started a debate to make a plan on how to explore the UNEXMIN technology to the market once the project is over. The discussions around the future exploitation of the UNEXMIN project and its results extended to the second day of the meeting. To finalise this fruitful workshop, an early exploitation plan and course of action were successfully defined. This action will ensure the everyone is working towards the same objectives.

The discussions were partly held under a nice environment

The LPRC team, host of this UNEXMIN meeting in La Palma, actively participated in all the discussions giving some very useful input for the definition of the exploitation plan.

The consortium partners, who loved “La Isla Bonita”, as La Palma is known, will get back together in Bled, Slovenia, for a consortium meeting.

The UNEXMIN partners present in La Palma

See you all there!

UNEXMIN at the 3rd Meggen Raw Materials Days – International Seminar and Conference

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The BDG (Professional Association of the German Geoscientists) invited its members as well as domestic and foreign experts to the 3rd Meggen Raw Materials Days at the Galileo Park, in Lennestadt-Meggen, from September 13-15, 2017. During the three days a total of about 150 geologists from Germany, England, Bulgaria, Switzerland and the United States answered the invitation. On the first day, a seminar supported by the European Federation of Geologist’s (EFG) – training endorsement programme – was offered for these participants, in order to ensure the prescribed continuous professional development program.

Audience at the 3rd Meggen Raw Materials Days

During the conference, a number of high-level speakers provided insights into the raw materials’ exploration, including salt, lignite and lithium in Germany, Ethiopia or Australia. Furthermore, presentations addressed current developments regarding various post-mining activities such as rehabilitation of ore mines, nature conservation on mining sites or mine water treatment. Other presentations on risk management in abandoned mining, novel drilling techniques in the area of tailing piles and the problems in salt cavern construction were also addressed.

The large interest of the audience in the UNEXMIN project has shown, once again, the relevance and the demand for the new cutting-edge UNEXMIN technology with manifold applications in the raw materials and mining sectors. Newly established contacts with relevant stakeholders will contribute to the successful accomplishment of the overall project and will ensure that the UNEXMIN project meets the user requirements during the development of the UX-1 robot.