Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MOTIONMAPPER (A real-time slope stability and subsidence monitoring service to improve productivity and to prevent catastrophic events in the mining industry)

Teaser

The mining industry is growing and is a key global economic driver, providing raw materials for consumer and industrial products, being Europe one of the most demanding regions of raw materials. Mining operations relie on large scale, continuing, and safe operations in and...

Summary

The mining industry is growing and is a key global economic driver, providing raw materials for consumer and industrial products, being Europe one of the most demanding regions of raw materials. Mining operations relie on large scale, continuing, and safe operations in and around geological sites, but with repeated accidents and non-complete monitoring of how operations are impacting the terrain, the issue is far from resolved.

Disasters occur, such as collapses of mining slopes, or ‘tailings dams’ with a release of chemicals leading to loss of life, interruption of mining operations and catastrophic environmental consequences: a collapse of a tailings dam may destroy natural drinking water and rivers for centuries.

DARES, a European company formed by staff with multiple years’ of experience in the industrial remote monitoring field wish to change this. We have been developing and commercializing an industry leading satellite-based remote monitoring solution. Thanks to this, we are already operating in more than 40 mining sites, being completely in permanent contact with the key players and users. Now we are adding Drone, Ground Radar and near-realtime processing to generate a complete wide area to local area monitoring and alerting solution. Called MOTIONMAPPERTM 2.0, it represents a ground-breaking solution to ensure safety of operations and to guarantee operational efficiency. We will see and report about the geotechnical precursors in advance before is too late.

Generating a new product category in a sector with clear demand, we predict sales of more than 20M€ by 2025, growth to 100 employees and a substantial impact on the protection of the environment as well as the European Earth Monitoring sector and its technical expertise. We will safe lives and avoid environmental disasters.

Work performed

During the first twelve months of the project we have achieved all the objectives according to the plan. The development of the activities has been carried out in time and the milestones have been achieved.

We have achieved the implementation of a compact Radar and being ready to flight on-board drones. We have demonstrated functional and accuracy capabilities of the instruments, achieving the desired milestone of 1mm accuracy for ground displacement measurements. During this first year we have performed a long-term monitoring demonstration during some months in autonomous mode over a mining area, being able to report about ground deformations. Demonstrating the system autonomy and viability for being operating outdoor.

We have also performed several marketing and dissemintation activities performed some activities. We have increased our presence in the mining community by mailings, in workshops, dedicated mining magazines and specially in Linkedin. We have significantly increasing our presence as well in technical workshops acting as oral speaking, chairman and being part of the scientific committee.

In general, the project continues according to planned progress. We are pleased with completed management and coordination.

Final results

DARES will implement a unique and autonmous slope stability and ground deformation monitoring system to provide, for the first time, real-time measurements with highest resolution over whole mining areas: We monitor slope stability for open cast mine slopes and ground deformation for tailings dams and underground mines. Combining market-leading European (Copernicus) SATELLITES, world first RADAR DRONES and new GROUND RADAR deformation services in ONE UNIQUE MOTIONMAPPERTM SERVICE.

We are working towards highest impact for (1) EU Private Space Sector (increased revenues and European employment), (2) the mining sector (safer and increased efficiency in operations), and (3) the environment (protected natural resources and our Planet).

The actual mines and their supporting structures can be vast making it complicated to ensure safe operations. Disasters occur, for example, a slope in an open cast mine may steadily shift and then suddenly collapse. A “Tailings Dam” that protects a lake of contaminated water from a mining operation may slowly move over years and eventually burst. Such events have been continually shown to lead to direct loss of life, to contamination of the environment (such as aquifers and rivers with the loss of drinking water and fish stocks), to the destruction of lively hoods and to years of reduced productivity with tremendous economic impact.

Our MOTIONMAPPERTM 2.0 will be a game changer for mining safety and also mining efficiency. MOTIONMAPPERTM 2.0 will be the only system that delivers data with mm accuracy, real-time frequency and 100% field-of-view coverage. MOTIONMAPPERTM 2.0 will be truly ground-breaking in this aspect: Complete real-time information about any slope failure enables the decision-makers to approve decisions with higher risk.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.dares.tech.