Emesent High-Resolution, Accurate 3D Point Clouds for the Mining Industry

Emesent is a world-leader in drone autonomy, LiDAR mapping, and data analytics. Since its inception in 2018, Emesent has built a reputation for advanced autonomy and high-quality data capture in the mining, infrastructure, and forestry industries. With an extensive list of global distributors, their solution includes hardware, software, and services.

Hovermap: LiDAR mapping of inaccessible areas

Emesent’s Hovermap is the world’s most versatile LiDAR mapping solution, capturing high-resolution scans of inaccessible areas safely, easily, and quickly. An advanced LiDAR mapping payload, Hovermap allows drones to fly autonomously and map hazardous or GPS-denied environments.

Fly, drive or walk to capture data, and produce geo-referenced point clouds, in under 30 minutes.

Mapping in underground mining

Improve the safety of hazardous inspections and surveys by substituting a drone for a person and gain unprecedented levels of data quality to inform all your operational decision making.

Scan stopes in minutes

Use Hovermap to inspect a stope in less time than it takes to set up a traditional Cavity Monitoring System, while you remain at a safe distance. The output, rich, geo-referenced point clouds that include areas previously hidden by shadows, provides geotechnical and volumetric data to identify stope volumes and heights, confirm backfill volumes, improve scheduling and backfill design. Hovermap’s ability to quickly map any structure means that stope inspections now have minimal impact on production.

Draw points

Reduce production time lost to hang-ups. Safely pilot Hovermap from the extraction drive to gain a clear view of the blockage and collect the data needed to prepare a targeted approach for its removal.

Ore passes

Stay on top of wear and damage within ore passes and minimize interruptions to production with rapid Hovermap inspections. Attached to a drum winch, Hovermap quickly maps ore passes, producing accurate and detailed data for your mine plan.

Deformation monitoring and ground support

Regularly monitor drive or drift ground support for correct installation, mechanical damage, or convergence. Hovermap’s rapid, high-resolution scans provide quantitative change detection data that guide your response plans.

Drift development

Scan drifts pre- and post-blast to capture volumes, over- and under-break and calculate bulking factors. A rapid scan with Hovermap allows you to accurately schedule the correct number of trucks for bogging. Regular scans also help detect deformation in these areas where personnel is exposed to rock mass hazards.

Old workings

Bring accurate scans of old mine areas, which may have been untouched for over a century, into your mine plan. Hovermap’s autonomous flight capability allows you to digitize entire networks of historical workings in a day, while you remain in cthe ontrolled ground.

Structure detection and rock mass characterization

Capture a high-resolution surface representation to accurately detect and characterize structural features for geotechnical assessment and planning.

Improving safety in underground operations

Reduce the exposure of personnel to hazardous environments. Fly Hovermap into stopes, draw points, drifts, or other high-risk areas while personnel remains away from brows, confined spaces, or heights.  Safely check rill angles and confirm bund heights and locations.

Greater insights from high-resolution LiDAR data

Hovermap’s rotating LiDAR sensor provides a 360-degree field of view, ensuring shadowless, 3D data capture, that produces rich, georeferenced data sets. Be rest assured that inspections with Hovermap produce high-quality data that deliver the insights you need, whether for convergence monitoring, structural feature classification or volumetrics for over / under break, reconciliations, and stockpile paste scheduling. Add additional sensors such as cameras or gas monitors for further data analytics.

Productivity and efficiency in data capture

With Hovermap, press one button to start scanning whether you are walking, driving, or flying. Hovermap can even attach to RC buggies, loaders, or a winch to scan hard-to-reach places, quickly, and safely.

Forget the long set up time of a CMS. Setup Hovermap, map, download, and process data in under 30 minutes. You can now capture data in less time, at a lower cost, and minimize production disruptions.

Operating Hovermap does not require specialist drone pilot skills or a team of people. One person with training can operate and map any structures.

Adaptable to any environment

Hovermap is used to map stopes, drifts, orepasses, drawpoints, old workings, crushers, stockpiles, high walls and low walls, and an array of aboveground infrastructure. In fact, any environment that is hazardous or GPS-denied. The quick-release mechanism allows you to fly a mission and then unclip Hovermap to perform a walk-through scan. Multiple scans are automatically merged by Hovermap’s software to deliver a complete, rich, LiDAR point cloud.