BROADCASTS.com

Jeremy Stafford used to get some strange looks when he turned up to mining expositions or other shows with an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV.

“Everybody was always like, ‘Why do you have this drone? Why do you have that little whirly-bird toy sitting there on your display?’” said Stafford, Vice President of IdealBlasting. “Nobody was really considering that this was a tool, not a toy.”

Four years later, that’s hardly the case.

“I can be at a conference, and I’ll be walking through the lobby on the way into the exhibit hall, and you’ll see one or two people with UAVs sitting on their table having coffee with their colleagues,” he said. “It’s a huge paradigm shift in how they’re viewed.”

The mining and blasting industries are starting to understand just how valuable UAVs can be, not only with the tools they can provide but in the increased level of safety given to workers now that certain parameters are easily acquirable.

“With LiDAR, specifically, and the accuracies you can get now, you’re able to build a pretty picture that’s not only a pretty picture but also a useful picture of what’s going on on-site,” said Matt Rosenbalm, Sales Manager for the Southern United States for Microdrones. “The engineers can then take that 3D model and make different recommendations and decisions to ensure they’re getting the most out of that mine or quarry, whether it be where they dig next, where they should blast next or how they should set up a blast.

“The LiDAR and different sensors you can carry on drones now fit and mesh really well with the expectations of getting the most out of the quarry.”