Following its acquisition of a significant stake in Inkonova AB, which was one of the few companies worldwide developing underground mine drone technology, Japan’s Terra Drone Corporation has now established a new branch in South Africa specialising in drone solutions for underground and surface mining. “Terra Drone is a leading global commercial drone technology company focused on providing cutting-edge, smart-mining solutions, which improve safety, reduce down-time, reduce costs, and increase the quality of data so better business decisions can be made. Finally, Terra Drone aims at further development of drone technology throughout the South African industry.”
“South Africa, which was once one of the world’s largest gold producers, has recently been sluggish and fell to the world’s 8th largest gold producer due to reduced mining output and the notable rise of production in other countries. Furthermore, the necessity to improve safety protocols is evident as frequent collapses and deadly accidents continue to occur in mining operations. In order to solve these problems, Terra Drone’s South Africa branch will provide a total smart-mining solution using our industry leading drone and software technology providing one of the world’s first underground drone solutions.”
With regard to the utilisation of underground drones, it is generally very difficult to adapt to the dark and narrow environments due to the confined space and lack of GPS signals that drones typically use to navigate. In addition, the mines are often times very difficult to access and may be dangerous for humans to enter at all. “Until recently, available drone technology was limited because of these factors, however, Terra Drone has already started offering unique underground drone solutions with the use of innovative and ground-breaking technologies developed by one of our group companies, Inkonova AB.”
“Our new headquarters can contribute to solving problems through the creation of new employment in South Africa, reduction of human injury due to the improvement of safety, and cost-effective solutions by increasing data accuracy and speed of data collection and delivery. Additionally, we are aiming to deploy not only to the Republic of South Africa but also throughout the whole of Africa, which has a population of over 1.2 billion people. We are planning to release safe and high-quality technologies from Africa to the rest of the world,” said Toru Tokushsige Founder and CEO of Terra Drone.