KGHM’s new CuXRF robot gets grade answers right at the face

Posted by Paul Moore on 26th May 2020

In its 2019 annual report, Poland’s copper and silver mining major KGHM Polska Miedz said that technology activities for the year had included “robotisation of production and auxilliary processes” including construction of a CuXRF robot for scanning for copper content at the working faces in the mines.

KGHM told IM that the goal of the CuXRF robot project was the construction of a robot prototype for measuring the content of mineral elements (primarily copper) in the mining faces which see over 100,000 advances annually at KGHM. For each face advance, the elemental composition is determined by an accredited laboratory, however, results take up to 36 hours or more to come back. The CuXRF robot has the potential to reduce the losses associated with the exploitation of faces with copper content below the given criteria while sampling results are awaited.

The robot construction consists of an XRF head designed on the basis of a design created by KGHM itself, mounted on an electric drive chassis adapted to the challenging conditions in the company’s mines. A robotic arm allows for more manoeuvrability with instruments also having a hermetically sealed casing resistant to the microclimate conditions in the mine. The prototype makes possible near real-time measurements (about 15 minutes) of metal content in the mines, which allows for more direct management of mining operations and gives the ability to precisely measure Cu content in places where it is below 1%. A reach of 3 m with the arm enables measurements to be made in undeveloped areas that people are not allowed to enter. The scanner is powered by the vehicle battery and the measurement task itself is automated but there is the added possibility of remote control of the whole unit as well as expanding the application scope to include the measurement of grade in the roofs and floors of excavations.