Rolling out robots for unsafe mines: technology developed at Penguin ASI to investigate mine safety.

• Author: Stewart, Nick
• Position: SUDBURY - Penguin Automated Systems

Two years after ground instability shuttered Xstrata Nickel's Montcalm Mine near Timmins, one Sudbury robotics firm is pioneering new technology to safely explore its depths.

When Xstrata decided it needed to investigate the probability of further ground movement, safety concerns dictated this task could not be done by sending staff into the potentially unsafe mine.

It turned its attention to Penguin Automated Systems, which has previously worked with a variety of industry and government agencies around the world to research and. develop robotic systems.

In response, the company is developing two remote-controlled wheeled robots to work in tandem to investigate the status of the shuttered mine. One establishes a wireless communications network and the other extends this network to travel deeper into the mine and perform a variety of tasks.

"We've filed for patent, because nobody's done the kind of work where you have a multi-robot system to extend the network," says Penguin CEO Greg Baiden, who also holds a Canadian Research Chair in robotics and automation at Laurentian University.

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"Fire (departments) don't have it, the military don't have it, the police don't have it, nobody has anything like this."

The goal of Baiden's team is far from a simple one: send a robot down a 1.5-kilometre ramp, turn a corner, and arrive at the edge of an open stope, where it would need to extend a robotic arm and fire off a laser scanner.

Along the way, it would also have to assess the status of the Montcalm ramp, which has since been washed out, and use a grinder to cut through a security barricade blocking access to the scanning area.

To achieve this task, it was determined two robots would be needed: one to act as a transmitter at the top of the ramp, which would send orders to and information from the second unit, a so-called "beaverbot" which would do the cutting and scanning work.

The latter could then use the communications infrastructure established by the first to travel the ramp, while dropping small relay beacons along the way to extend the wireless range and allow the unit to travel further.

An initial attempt to modify off-the-shelf, commercially available robots such as police robots were largely unsuccessful, due in part to the poor ramp conditions.

Indeed, ramp conditions were "worse than anybody thought," making it more challenging to perform the delicate task of navigating the terrain. As the route was largely washed...