Mobilaris Mining & Civil Engineering has announced the official launch of Mobilaris Onboard™. Mobilaris Onboard™ “is a revolutionising new product running on a standard tablet with a patent pending disruptive technology that makes high accuracy positioning in underground mines possible, even without any positioning infrastructure.”

“We are confident that Mobilaris Onboard™ will cause a paradigm shift in the underground mining industry as it makes every miner aware of the whole real-time situation in the mine and enable a set of unique tools that will both empower people by increased transparency, increase productivity by less traffic congestions and safer, says Hans Wahlquist, VP Business Development & Strategic Product Management at Mobilaris.”

Mobilaris Onboard™ is a revolutionising new product that allows drivers of underground vehicles/machines to:

• Navigate in the mine. Just as a car-navigator, you can see where you are in real-time while driving. You can search for any assets, fixed or moving and get an accurate “fly-by-wire” navigation to that destination.
• Avoid traffic congestions. Just as a “mobile radar”, Mobilaris Onboard™ Traffic Awareness feature will enable you to avoid meetings with other vehicles or machines that otherwise might lead to a traffic congestion.
• Get a unique situational awareness of the whole mine. Just like the view that the operators of a mining operation center, now everyone has this information at their fingertips.
• Become safer. In the case of an evacuation event, you can get navigation to the closest rescue chambers at the blink of an eye.

“The outstanding positioning accuracy of Mobilaris Onboard™ comes from a patent pending, unique and disruptive algorithm called Mobilaris Hybrid Positioning™. This algorithm allows Mobilaris Onboard™ to obtain a highly accurate location (usually 5-10 metres accuracy at 95% of the time).”

Now, this comes without any needs for an additional high-accuracy tracking infrastructure which is one of the unique values of Mobilaris Onboard™.

“From the start of Bolidens Mine Automation Program, data connectivity and positioning services has been prioritized because they are enablers for all digitalisation and automation efforts. Boliden Kristineberg Mine was the first mine to adopt Mobilaris Mining Intelligence system and it will now the first mine in the world to upgrade to the next level of positioning services, Mobilaris Onboard™. The improved accuracy will be used to enable traffic control, network performance measurements and mine safety,” says Peter Burman, Program Manager for Mine Automation at Boliden.

According to Andreas Suup, Mine Manager at Boliden Kristineberg, there are many benefits with Mobilaris Onboard™. “Before, we had to drive our co-workers around and show them the ropes before allowing them to be self-sufficient in the mine. With this system we have realised that we can use positioning, type that into the Mobilaris Onboard™ system, and they will get a waypoint in the system showing them exactly where to go. It means that our co-workers can get to a production site in short notice. We have to be able to attract young people. We want to be high-tech, and this is definitely a step towards taking the mining industry to a higher level of digitalisation,” says Andreas Suup.

Epiroc’s Underground Rock Excavation division will offer this solution throughout its global sales network as part of its ground breaking underground Automation and Information Management suite. “By visualising the traffic situation from inside the cabin of vehicles and mobile mining machines, Mobilaris makes a giant step in terms of safety, productivity and smooth traffic flow. All miners understand the huge value of advance notice of on-coming traffic. Machine operators, drivers, shift planners, mine supervisor, managers and more. They will all have higher certainty of the actual situation in the mine and that is a benefit that cannot be understated,” says Ulla Korsman-Kopra, Global Business Manager in Epiroc.