With a click on of a mouse, Michael Condie is calmly slicing large slabs of earth with huge equipment no less than 300 metres underground from the place he sits. 

Thanks to latest advances in expertise, this contemporary longwall mining scene is a far cry from the underground coal mining imagery of the previous, when staff emerged from the literal coal face, lined in mud.

“These guys are basically producing coal all the way from the surface,” Mr Condie mentioned. 

Working because the automation coordinator at Glencore’s Oaky Creek mine in central Queensland, Mr Condie mentioned remotely mining the longwall had all the time been a purpose of the underground mine, which produces metallurgical coal for export, to make metal.

The system is designed to take away extra miners away from high-risk conditions, working subsequent to heavy equipment, a 16-kilometre-underground drive from the workplace controls.

“We’ve still got a small crew of people underground, but they are away from the hazardous areas of the machines,” Mr Condie mentioned.

The firm now mines like this, with a click on of a button, due to CSIRO 3D laser-scanning expertise referred to as ExScan, which it first began growing in 2017, funded by the Australian Coal Industry’s Research Program (ACARP).

“[It gives] operators a view of what’s underground, without actually having to be there,” mentioned Mark Dunn, principal analysis engineer with the CSIRO’s mining applied sciences group.

World-first expertise expands

First trialled on the mine north of Blackwater in central Queensland in 2019, the expertise is now in use in no less than 10 mines throughout Australia and a number of other abroad, together with the United States.

The advances in expertise, permitting for nearly absolutely automated mining, is one thing automation engineer Duane Witkowski couldn’t have imagined 20 years in the past when he first began out within the business.

“There wasn’t the technology available to be able to do those functions that we have currently,” he mentioned.

“[But] I think it’s like anything … it’s just a given function of where the world’s going.”

Dr Dunn mentioned the necessity for security was an enormous driver total within the CSIRO’s mining analysis and advances.

“Getting the tools and the utilities out into industry and out commercialised through third parties is absolutely vital to improve the safety.”

According to Resources Safety and Health Queensland, within the 5 years to June 2022, there have been 356 severe incidents in Queensland’s coal mines (each floor and underground).

Ten individuals misplaced their lives.

A “serious incident” means an individual needed to be admitted to hospital for remedy of the damage, or they died.

Not only for mining

Dr Dunn mentioned the expertise was additionally being trialled at open-cut mines and within the civil engineering business house, significantly with tunnelling.

“There are limitations on where coal mining may be in the future, but there’s always going to be a need for remote operations systems,” he mentioned.

“Having any sensors or technologies that can assist humans being able to control equipment that is in a potentially dangerous environment is always going to be of value.

“The software might be much less necessary, it is extra about offering that human interface to the machines.

“For instance, in agriculture, there are potentially explosive environments … this sort of technology could absolutely be used as well.”