MINING DRONES

At LKAB’s Kiruna mine, one of the world’s largest underground iron ore mines, drones are transforming the way inspections are carried out. Production technician Daniel Jatko explains how the Elios 3 drone, equipped with a LiDAR scanner, has been a game-changer for the team. Its compact size allows it to navigate tight spaces like ore passes, crushers, and other heavy mining equipment, capturing both traditional video and 3D point cloud data. This innovation saves valuable production time, reduces costs, and provides highly accurate information for planning and maintenance.

Before drones, mining inspections often required scaffolding or putting workers in potentially dangerous situations, and in some areas, inspections weren’t possible at all. Now, LKAB can perform safer, faster, and more efficient checks, ensuring equipment integrity and mine safety without disrupting operations. The result is a significant boost in productivity and a major step forward in modernizing underground mining practices.

Join us in an underground mine as he demonstrates how the Elios 3 with Surveying Payload transforms stope inspection and mapping.

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In this video, you’ll see how the Elios 3 drone performed a complete drone stope inspection from a single location in only 10 minutes, delivering 100% coverage with zero shadowing. Its ability to fly from 15 meters away from the ridge also made the process much safer for the inspection team. Watch how precise stope mapping with LiDAR and high-resolution visuals allows engineers to calculate extracted volumes and understand geological structures for better planning. The video covers the exact flight strategy to produce accurate point clouds and detailed wall imagery. This is a clear example of how drones are replacing slower, riskier traditional methods with faster, safer, and more complete data collection in active mining environments.

LKAB demonstrates how to efficiently map ore passes in its underground mine by using drones. Discover how the Kiruna mine adopted the Elios 3 mapping drone and transformed an 8-hour operation into a mere 20-minute job. Using the Elios 3 to inspect and map an ore pass, they managed to save ~7 hours of work and collect more accurate and complete data than previously possible.

Ore passes are critical vertical or steeply inclined shafts found in underground mines, responsible for moving extracted material from upper mining levels down to crushers or haulage systems below. Because they handle constant impact from falling rock, ore passes wear down, can become blocked, or develop structural issues, making regular inspections critical for both safety and production.

At LKAB's Kiruna mine, one of the largest underground iron ore mines in the world, they regularly inspect all of their 40 ore passes to make sure they are not getting too much wear. Deformations might lead to collapses or clogs. These vertical shafts are critical for transporting ore, but due to their hazardous environment, manual entry is not possible. 

Discover how the Elios 3 is changing the way mines tackle one of their most costly problems: hang-ups. In this video, we show how a US mine, after months of failed attempts using CMS scanners and drilling, could have saved millions and over two months of work with a single 10-minute Elios 3 flight.

Check out the FREE mining UAV factsheet 👉 https://bit.ly/4lsidmD

Watch how this advanced drone’s 3D live mapping and 4K visual feed enabled precise hang-up localization, revealing both the exact position and condition of the blockage inside a vertical raise. See why its compact design, collision-resistant cage, and ability to fly in inaccessible spaces make it the ultimate solution to localize hang-ups with drones, providing safer, faster, and more accurate results than traditional methods.

Inspect a draw point from a safe distance and get 100% visibility from the inside. Do it in less time than it takes to set up a traditional CMS.

With the accurate LiDAR scanning, fully calculate your stockpile inventory and tighten up your forecasting.

Perform regular ore pass monitoring and inspections to prevent hang-ups and keep the mine safe. 

Establish standard procedures for routine inspections of heavy mining equipment, such as conveyor belts, ball mills, SAG mills, crushers, and stockpile feeders.

Quickly map and inspect large excavations to ensure they are in a safe condition.