The mining industry has progressed significantly from ancient times by the artificial mining stage where people manually carried out mining activities with the help of simple digging and drafting tools to the current dynamites that we envision when we think about mining. Thanks to the development of IoT, Industry 4.0, 5G, AI technology, Smart Mining is now the new stage of mining industry.

What exactly is Smart Mining?

All equipment and machines that are physically present at the mining site are digitised and connected to a single digital system, allowing seamless data integration between all the individual equipment. Examples of such data include workflow progress, location, mining equipment condition, geological data about the locations and whereabouts in depth of ore.

Along with the above-mentioned technology, visualization is the last but not least aspect of the digital system — the smart ‘brain’ of the mining management. **Hightopo **is a leading solution provider of data visualization, user interface, graphics and image processing in the market, special focuses on 2D & 3D data visualization. Hightopo product HT for Web is a data visualization graphic component middleware based on HTML5 standard browser technology special made for the industrial monitoring field.

In this article, we will explore how HT for Web (HT for short) helps Smart Mining.

Workflow Progress

Open-pit Mine Visualization

The data on the mining range, mining depth, mining volume, and ore consumption of open-pit mines is the top priority of mine work progress monitoring. Visualizing those data in a timely and accurate manner is necessary for mine management. HT comes with rich data presence format, such as charts, tables, interactive data-driven icons to help managers get an insight into the mining site and greatly increase work efficiency.

Underground Tunnel Visualization

HT powerful 3d rendering capability ensures the smooth loading and interaction of the 3d model even on the web. First-person mode roaming bring an immersive experience on monitoring tunnel environment and area. HT visualization is also VR supported, therefore, this 3d model can be viewed on VR devices and provide a safety training for underground workers.

The walkthrough feature also supports rewind and fast forward, and change view. Helping operators to get views at different angles, get insight on equipment distribution.

Worker Location

In order to ensure the safety supervision of the coal mining process, the CAD drawings can be imported into the HT platform, connected to the background data and synchronized and dynamically updated according to the position coordinates of the operators. When the warning signal is triggered, the system can immediately notify the nearby staff to evacuate to a safe area and reduce the tragedy of the mining accident. Keep tracking mineworkers’ safety in real-time.

Mining Equipment Condition

As a graphic component library based on the HTML5 standard, HT can seamlessly integrate various multimedia functions and support the integration of various video resources to form a unified video stream. It can mark camera objects on 2D and 3D situation maps and associate their video signal sources. Scene interaction is used to retrieve the corresponding surveillance video to meet the monitoring needs of operation and maintenance personnel for real-time situational awareness of the scene, historical data retrospective comparison, and emergency response plans.

Ventilation System

3D visualization brings a vivid presentation of the device/equipment. Compare to traditional diagram data, HT visualization makes the content more readable and controllable. Sync data from sensors and display it on the data panels in real-time and historical trends. Binding the data to 3d models using HT APIs enable the various kind of animation. As the management platform, operators are able to based on current state of equipments to adjust the ventilation volume, fan status to optimize the efficiency of underground work.

Belt Conveyor System

HT visualization solution covers 2d and 3d, what makes HT stand out is its 2d and 3d integrated feature. As the image shown above, the 2d icon, chart, table, etc can be seamless work on 3d scene.

Drainage System

In the past, the control lines of manual inspection were disorderly, lack of interaction and cooperation, and on-site maintenance costs remained high. With the help of HT 3D visual drainage monitoring module, real-time dynamic data of high-level pools, downhole sumps and pumps are displayed intuitively. Synchronously collect multiple information such as temperature, current, pressure, and flow rate of drainage equipment, and create multi-parameter real-time online management and control.

Lighting System

Web-based HMI/SCADA solution for the easy creation and deployment of highly customizable and fully interactive topology diagrams, dashboards and charts.

This allows operators to improve situational awareness, the mobility of visualization anytime and anywhere, and important equipment control, which provides form a centralized view of operations.

Spatial & Geological Data (HT GIS)

HT also provides solutions for displaying the minefield in combination with GIS maps. Our new product — HT for Web GIS combine HT powerful visualization and graphic rendering technology, to GIS application such as Mapbox, Cesium. Seamless integrate drone aerial photography to HT’s original 3D model and scenes to solve the huge workload of traditional manually modelling.

High-precision real-time monitoring of information such as environmental situation, excavation and mining progress, equipment operation, working condition status, etc., gives data spatial attributes and visualizes complex factors. Form a set of insightful reference data to provide strong decision support for mining operation supervision.

Conclusion

Hightopo visualization solution enables mining site managers to keep track of mining asset conditions, supervise workflow efficiently and keep track of mineworkers’ safety in real-time. These managers and business owners are thus guaranteed to make better-informed decisions at any given time with all the data and information available as insights and information required will be integrated into a single dashboard supported on tablets and monitors. Due to the lightweight and B/S structure of HT, information can be accessed by mine managers and employees anywhere anytime.

Smart mining is not a distant future anymore. Mining industry business owners should follow suit to this change and reap its benefits by using digital transformation. It is the next step for business owners to consider and sharpen their competitive advantage.