Aerial Rock Fragmentation Analysis in Low-Light Condition Using UAV Technology
This addresses the challenge of accurate rock fragmentation analysis for mining operations during night shifts or in underground environments, representing an incremental improvement.
This work tackled the problem of measuring rock fragmentation in low-light mining conditions by using UAVs with artificial lighting, achieving similar accuracy to ideal lighting conditions in both indoor and outdoor experiments.
In recent years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology has been introduced into the mining industry to conduct terrain surveying. This work investigates the application of UAVs with artificial lighting for measurement of rock fragmentation under poor lighting conditions, representing night shifts in surface mines or working conditions in underground mines. The study relies on indoor and outdoor experiments for rock fragmentation analysis using a quadrotor UAV. Comparison of the rock size distributions in both cases show that adequate artificial lighting enables similar accuracy to ideal lighting conditions.