Usuário(a):Luislopeslprc/Testes

UNEXMIN (Underwater Explorer for Flooded Mines) is a 45-month project that received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, which started in February 2016. Its main objective is to develop a new autonomous multi-robotic system that can explore and map Europe's currently inaccessible flooded and deep mines using non-invasive methods.

Concept and approach

In Europe, it is estimated that there are 30,000 closed mine sites and many of these may have considerable amounts of essential raw materials. These leftover minerals usually are the ones that were disregarded during the operational life a mine. It is a usual symptom of mining: the mines are closed not because of mineral depletion, but because of economical and technological constraints, parameters that suffer fluctuations with time. Today, however, it could be feasible to explore the minerals that were left behind and that may now become essential resources for the European raw materials’ market pool. Many of these closed mines are now flooded and the last piece of information of their status and layout is decades or more than a hundred years old. The complex underground layout, topology and geometry of most underground mines, make it impossible to do any surveying by conventional or remotely controlled equipment. One of these examples is the usage of human divers, which can prove unfruitful and even lethal in harsh deep mine conditions.

UNEXMIN will develop a multi-robotic system, a novel mine surveying services and business model for mapping flooded abandoned mines autonomously. Robotics technology transferred from deep sea research will open new exploration scenarios so that strategic decisions on the re-opening of some of Europe’s closed mines could be supported by actualised data. Recent developments in autonomy research will allow the design and development of a new class of mine explorer service robots, capable of operating in real mine conditions without remote control. Such robots do not exist nowadays and UX-1, the multi-platform robot explorer, will be the first of its kind.

The Explorer will need to employ a wide range of robotics technologies and cutting-edge knowhow from deep sea underwater robotic systems, 3D map reconstruction, control and navigation, autonomy and other areas of interest. The technologies will be adapted to and tested in real mine conditions, integrating imaging and other non-destructive, non-invasive surveying technologies and measurement methods that will provide valuable information on the status of these inaccessible areas.

Objectives

The main objective in UNEXMIN is to develop a fully autonomous multi-platform Robotic Explorer, that will use non-invasive methods for 3D mine mapping on flooded and deep mines, otherwise inaccessible, in Europe. This work will lead to new and valuable geological and mineralogical information that may result in important decisions on the future of Europe’s raw materials. UNEXMIN’s pioneer developing technique could open new exploration scenarios for European abandoned mines, with the help from actualized data that cannot be accessed any other way. Specific goals of the UNEXMIN project are as follows:

• Design and build a multi-platform Robotic Explorer for autonomous 3D mapping of flooded deep mines
• Demonstrate the operation of the prototype at a set of representative pilot sites
• Develop an open access platform for technology transfer and further development between stakeholders
• Develop a research roadmap in support of further technology development
• Develop commercial services for exploiting the technology

These major objectives will be supported by a science and technology merger of deep sea robotics solutions with user’s requirements from the mining industry. They will lead to a fine adaptation of UX-1 so that the novel developed technology could best serve end-users.

Technology usage and developments

The multi-robot Platform, UX-1, will become a new technology trend, after recent developments in autonomy research, which will allow the development of a whole new class of mine explorer robots, able to operate without remote control. UX-1 will need to employ a wide range of robotic technologies and knowhow in areas such as 3D map reconstruction, control and navigation, autonomy and deep sea underwater robotic systems, that together will result in a new line of technology.

Robots’ design specifications will be adapted to the unique qualities of deep-level mining environments that are now flooded: they will employ a wide range of robotics technology and cutting-edge knowhow in different areas, ranging from robotics to technology developers in mineral exploration.

The first prototype of the robot will be preceded from component validation and simulations, to first understand the behavior of technology components and instruments in the new environment it will be used – deep confined flooded mines. At the same time post processing and data analysis tools will also be developed, including pre-operational trials which will be launched in real conditions.

The final stage of UNEXMIN’s project will lead to deployment of extensive pilots, during which UX-1 will be improved after each trial session, always testing it on harsher and harsher conditions. The last step of this process will culminate with the hardest challenge: resurveying the entire flooded section of Ecton mine. The robot’s development process is meant to be spiralling with continuous upgrades that are implemented in parallel with more and more complex field pilots. This will demonstrate the Platform’s scalability from small missions to the larger ones by increasing the number of deployed autonomous drones, and supporting multi-robot cooperation in confined 3D spaces with real-time sensor and data fusion for reliable navigation and communication.

UNEXMIN will open long-term cooperation possibilities between Europe’s Raw Materials and robotic technology provider sectors – this can lead to a reduction in high costs for exploration and to the development of science and technology, one of the EU’s main goals.

Technological challenges

The deployment of a multi-robotic system in a confined environment, such as a flooded mine, inherits a lot of challenges and problems that must be overcome so that the robots can work autonomously in such spaces, without damaging the equipment and the mine itself. The most important challenges that must be overcome in UNEXMIN are:

• Explorer structural design for robustness an resilience
• Localization, navigation and 3D mapping
• Guidance, propulsion and control
• Autonomous operation and supervision
• Data processing, interpretation and evaluation

To address these major challenges UNEXMIN brings together research teams covering deep sea robotics, autonomy research, mineral exploration and development of miniaturized scientific instruments to create this very specific technology, in a strong collaborative way.

Test sites

The multi-robot platform will be designed, built and then tested and validated in real-life conditions in four mine test sites, with increasingly harder conditions. The mines that will be used as test sites during the project lifetime are (in temporal and difficulty order):

• Kaatiala Mine, Finland
• Urgeiriça Mine, Portugal
• Idrija Mine, Slovenia
• Ecton mine, UK

Ecton Mine, that will be the last test site for UX-1, will result in a resurveying of the flooded mine floors that nobody has seen for more than 150 years and that will bring important geological information.

Partners

In this European project, a total of 13 institutions from 7 countries are collaborating to develop a new technology. The partners are:

1. University of Miskolc (UM), Hungary
2. Geological Survey of Slovenia (GeoZS), Slovenia
3. Tampere University of Technology, Department of Mechanical, Engineering and Industrial Systems (TUT), Finland
4. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Centre for Automation and Robotics (UPM-CSIC), Spain
5. La Palma Research S.L. (LPRC), Spain
6. Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering of Porto (INESC), Portugal
7. Resources Computing International Ltd (RCI), UK
8. Geoplano (GEOP), Portugal
9. Ecton Mine Educational Trust (EMET), UK
10. European Federation of Geologists (EFG), France
11. Geo-montan (GEOM), Hungary
12. Empresa de Desenvolvimento Mineiro (EDM), Portugal
13. Idrija Mercury Heritage Management Centre (CUDHgI), Slovenia

External links

UNEXMIN Website