LiDAR in Mining
Aerial surveying and mapping technologies have been used for 40 years to assist mining companies through all phases of a mine’s life, including exploration, resource evaluation, feasibility, mine design, development, operations and site rehabilitation.
For much of this 40 year period, the most appropriate ‘fit for purpose’ aerial survey methodology for mining has been based around aerial photography and photogrammetry. The success and popularity of this method is dependent on the skill, experience, knowledge and delivery speed of the aerial survey company, ground support from mine site survey staff and some reasonably good weather.
The spatial data acquired from this methodology includes digital terrain models, feature coded mine vector mapping, orthorectified georeferenced imagery, topographic mapping, contours and pictorial imagery.
The spatial data delivered is designed to support a diverse range of mining activities, such as:
- Exploration and resource evaluation
- Design and construction of mine plant and infrastructure
- Determination of ore body, pit and void volumes for mine planning
- Periodic determination of pit, bench, pre-strip and spoil surface volumes for auditing payments to earthworks contractors
- Periodic determination of stockpile volumes for inventory and accounting purposes
- Environmental planning, monitoring and reporting for the mining operation and the neighbouring region
In addition to aerial photography and photogrammetry, for the last ten years AAM has also been successfully deploying LiDAR as another ‘fit for purpose’ broad acre aerial survey methodology for the acquisition and supply of spatial data required for mining projects at prefeasibility through to the design and construct stage.
More recently however, LiDAR is proving to be a suitable and valuable tool to not only support mining operations, but also to supplement the yield of mine survey staff in providing planning engineers with critical pit data that was previously impossible to acquire in useful timeframes.
Provided clients are comfortable with a point cloud product, the benefits offered by LiDAR make it possible to overcome some of the limitations of aerial photography, such as:
- LiDAR data can be acquired under heavy cloud or at night, dramatically increasing the window of aerial survey capture time – particularly advantageous during the wet season!
- Unlike aerial photogrammetry, LiDAR surveys do not require ground control targets, allowing mine surveyors to concentrate on other important operational activities
- The project critical path to delivery of data can be much shorter and simpler, relying more on CPU time than on man hours
LiDAR surveys are particularly well suited to timecritical applications, in terms of capture window and delivery time. For example:
- Stockpile surveys that are required on the last day of the month, to coincide with the financial reporting period
- Specific surveys where the capture window is either very limited or time critical such as pre or post blast, start or end of contract, ship or train loading, empty or new stockpile pads and blending yards
In quantitative terms, a LiDAR survey of a mine pit:
- Can be arranged at 24 hours notice
- Can acquire survey data points at half metre spacing
- Can be at 0.1m accuracy
- Can cover up to 2000ha in one hour
- Can be delivered 48 hours after survey
The mining community over recent years has developed the need for more and faster spatial data. Mine surveyors and engineers have embraced the convenience of terrestrial laser scanning and have developed their ability to work with the subsequent ‘clouds’ of point data. This experience with terrestrial LiDAR data is a useful introduction to airborne LiDAR. To meet the mining industry need for more and faster spatial data AAM offers a complete range of mining related airborne LiDAR data acquisition, processing and consulting services.
For more information on LiDAR, click here.
Above Left: Aerial photograph of product stockpiles Above Right: LiDAR survey of product stockpiles for determining volumes
