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Meet Spot the robot dog at Cannington

04 APRIL 2023

Our Cannington Mine is supporting an industry leading technology company, Emesent, to develop and test Light Detection and Ranging (LiDar) scanning and automation technologies in real underground mining environments.

The team from Emesent were recently on site at Cannington with ‘Spot’ the Robot Dog, trialling Spot's autonomy development and capabilities in the underground mine.

While the technology is still in its research and development phase, it has the potential to guarantee safer outcomes and ultimately transform the way we operate. Mining work safety and productivity can be improved by deploying the autonomous capabilities of Spot in various potential scenarios with different data capturing tools, including scanning, video recording and heat sensing.

The focus on site was testing Spot's capability in 'post blast re-entry' scenarios and emergency response. Spot, with an integrated LiDAR scanner, autonomously navigated sections of the mine, travelling through uneven and wet ground without operator intervention and exploring unlit areas. Spot was able to produce a 3D Point Cloud map of the underground mine.

The Cannington team have previously worked with Emesent to help develop industry leading technologies including their Hovermap System for underground scanning, which is now used in mines all over the world.

The team at Cannington look forward to seeing the new technology that will help guarantee safety and support better production outcomes for the industry.

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