It’s not every day that you visit the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg to watch commercial drones in action, but Dwyka Mining Services gathered industry experts from around the world to showcase upcoming drone solutions.
Dwyka is a pan-African mining technology platform provider that assists underground mining clients to adopt and adapt to new tech – with a focus on supporting efforts to improve safety, health and environmental conditions — in effect, building what it calls the digital mine of the future.
First on the agenda was Skydio, whose drones are utilised for various commercial applications. Skydio showcased its capabilities in 3D mapping and demonstrated remote control of a drone located in California, more than 16 000km away.
Skydio drones use docking stations and can be automated, allowing for scheduled inspections. This automation lets the drones follow the same flight path and capture identical images each time, facilitating automated analysis and monitoring of asset condition changes.
Next up, Switzerland-based Wingtra showed off the WingtraOne, a tail-sitting vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial vehicle.
Powered by two electric motors, the WingtraOne is designed primarily for use in precision agriculture and surveying, or for light payload delivery to rural areas. Unfortunately, due to restrictions, the company was unable to showcase the drone in flight at the stadium.
Spot the robot
At the conclusion of the event, the organisers introduced two Boston Dynamics robots named Spot, one of which was equipped with Emesent’s Hovermap. Hovermap features Lidar sensing technology, producing high-density point clouds with exceptional coverage.
It has a sensing range of up to 300m and can capture over a million points per second, providing detailed and accurate data across a wide area. Adding to the complexity, Emesent demonstrated a drone equipped with Hovermap, which autonomously navigated to designated points and manoeuvred through obstacles with minimal human intervention.
One application is in mining: inspecting locations underground can be dangerous, so instead of sending off a person down a mine shaft, for example, a mining operation could send a drone instead. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media
