UNEXMIN important events in 2018

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The UNEXMIN project is soon going to enter its 3rd running year – a very important turning point, with the first UX-1 prototype entirely ready and trial missions in real-life environment. For this purpose, a timeline with the major events for the year 2018 is delineated, so stakeholders can easily know and follow UNEXMIN milestones for this year.

The year 2018 will bring a tight schedule in the UX-1 development to the UNEXMIN consortium. The project partners will have to prove the operability of the robotic system, both in hardware and software, in two mines in Europe: Kaatiala (Finland) and Idrija (Slovenia). The trials will be preceded by important deliverables related to software improvements. Among other checkpoints for this year, here are the most important ones:

  • A report on robot software/hardware documentation (February)
  • The inventory of Europe’s flooded mines (April)
  • The first software and post-processing tools developed and ready for UX-1 (May)
    • Real-time navigation and mapping
    • Low level control and exploration
    • UX-1 robot mission control
    • Three-dimensional visualisation software
  • UX-1 first prototype fully operational (May)
  • The trial in the Kaatiala Mine in Finland, and subsequent pilot report
  • The trial in the Idrija Mine in Slovenia, and subsequent pilot report

Delivering all the milestones in a timely manner will provide the perfect leverage for the last year of the project – due to end in October 2019.

Bringing to life an autonomous robotic system for the exploration and mapping of flooded mines was never achieved and this year can prove the absolute value of the UNEXMIN technology to a whole range of stakeholders, from the raw materials to the robotics communities.

UNEXMIN presented to the Mining Institute of Scotland

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Dr. James Tweedie of RCI/4DCoders presented an overview of the UNEXMIN project including robot design and development, instrumentation, data processing and visualisation, and even the future test sites to prove the technology operability, to members of the Mining Institute of Scotland (part of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining) at Heriot Watt University (Edinburgh) on 13th December 2017.

This event was also relayed by live interactive link to the meeting room at BP in Aberdeen and a single attendee elsewhere in Scotland. The presentation about the UNEXMIN project lasted about 50 minutes and was followed by a number of perceptive and relevant questions from attendees, covering both sensors and robot operation in real conditions, supporting the relevance of the UNEXMIN technology to the mining/raw materials community.

General layout of the UX-1 robot

Despite poor weather conditions about 30 people in total attended the presentation. The talk was so intriguing, that one of the attendees suggested that UNEXMIN should be there again in two years, this time to present the results of the four field trials! The first test will be held already in June, this year.

From the UNEXMIN side, we sure hope to be there again in the future with more good news about the project!

UNEXMIN present at the “H2020 cluster event for ongoing mining projects”

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The first ever EASME‘s event on Horizon 2020 mining projects, entitled “H2020 cluster event for ongoing mining projects”, took place in Brussels, Belgium on the 12th of December 2017. This event gathered H2020 and even FP7 projects that are dealing with the various aspects of mining such as underground and underwater exploration, automation, deep sea mining, amongst others.

H2020 and FP7 mining projects present at the event

The cluster event for ongoing mining projects, hosted participants from various EU-funded mining projects and the UNEXMIN project was one of those. During this one-day event there were presentations by each project regarding objectives, approaches, and challenges, with the final objective of trying to find synergies between the different mining projects, that have common points in many ways. The event’s presentations were divided in 6 main fields: Intelligent Mining, Deep Sea Exploration and Mining, Sustainable Selective Low-Impact Mining, Re-opening abandoned mines in the EU, Real Time Exploration and Real Time Mining, Alternative Mining and, finally, Climate Services for Mining.

The UNEXMIN project was presented by Dr. Norbert Zajzon, the project coordinator, and UNEXMIN was very well received by the audience, which included members from different EU bodies, due to its challenging and ground-breaking technology – developing an autonomous robotic system to explore flooded mines – that is still in the development phase.

UNEXMIN project presentation

Questions & Answers sessions for the “re-opening mines” session

The first edition of the “H2020 cluster event for ongoing mining projects” was a success, as it brought together different projects, dealing with common aspects of such an important sector as the mining one is. The UNEXMIN project hopes to be present again next year to share insights on the first field tests of the UX-1 robotic explorer!