Tag Archives: David Noon

GroundProbe reflects on geohazard monitoring developments on 20th anniversary

Mine surveying, Mining equipment, Mining safety, Mining services, , , , , , , ,

GroundProbe says it is immensely proud to be celebrating 20 years of operation and 20 years of keeping people and communities safe.

Over the last two decades, the company has expanded from a home-grown start-up to become a global innovation powerhouse and the trusted partner of companies around the world, it said.

GroundProbe calls itself a global leader in real-time geohazard monitoring technologies that help manage risk, ensure safety and increase productivity across mining and civil projects. Evolving from a PhD project at the University of Queensland, Australia, in 1993, by 2001, GroundProbe’s founders commercialised the world’s first patented Slope Stability Radar (SSR), which is now widely used to monitor mine walls and warn before collapses occur.

GroundProbe CEO and founder, David Noon, said that the success of GroundProbe’s business and its continual year-on-year growth is built on a culture of innovation and customer intimacy that permeates through every level of the company.

“GroundProbe has now deployed more than 700 systems and support services to customers in more than 35 countries,” he said. “To get to that level, we have proudly built long-term, trusted relationships with the top 20 mining and resources companies, globally.

“Across all of those deployed radars and customers, and in our entire 20-year history, I am most proud to say that we have fulfilled our ultimate goal by making mining safer. Our technology has never failed to detect a collapse, ultimately saving numerous lives.”

Anglo American’s Head of Geotechnical – T&S Group Mining, Lesley Munsamy, recently stated that the company is honoured to have played a part in GroundProbe’s history. The miner celebrated a number of “firsts” with GroundProbe, with the capturing of the first ever slope deformation data, the detection of the first ever slope failure and the first international radar deployment at Anglo American mine sites, GroundProbe said.

“Our mutually-beneficial partnership is based on GroundProbe’s impeccable safety track record and continuous innovation of its hardware and software tools,” Munsamy said. “The precise and valuable data that GroundProbe provides our sites has had an impact on our safety and productivity by enhancing our risk-management practices.

“GroundProbe redefined the slope risk management practices across the world. The availability of reliable real-time monitoring has had a significant impact on safety, a contribution that cannot be underestimated.”

GroundProbe offers Brazilian customers dedicated geotechnical monitoring option

Communications in mining, IoT, Mine surveying, Mining safety, Mining services, Mining software, Water management, , , , , , , , , , ,

GroundProbe has opened a dedicated Geotechnical Support Service (GSS) monitoring centre in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, to, it says, better serve its growing customer base in the country.

The centre will provide 24/7 real-time remote radar and laser monitoring services for mine slopes and tailings dams.

The centre joins GroundProbe’s two existing high-tech monitoring centres in Santiago, Chile, and Balikpapan, Indonesia, to provide support in four languages – Portuguese, Spanish, English and Bahasa.

Monitoring live stability data and reacting to alarms to ensure the maximum safety of people and communities, the centre connects remote sites with geotechnical industry experts in real time, GroundProbe says. The centres are crewed by more than 100 highly experienced engineers and radar operators with extensive radar knowledge and experience.

GroundProbe, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Orica, is widely accepted as a global leader in real-time technologies used to detect instabilities and predict when mine and dam collapses will occur.

GroundProbe CEO, David Noon, said that the company had witnessed a huge increase in demand for remote geotechnical expertise in Brazil.

“We saw it as an absolute necessity to bolster our offering and extend our support services to the region,” he said.

“The state-of-the-art centre provides the most technologically advanced solution for remote monitoring in the region and shows our level of commitment to our customers there.

“It leans on our five-and-a-half years of remote monitoring experience, our recognised systems and processes and our established resourcing model, all of which ensures the highest level of data integrity and service availability.”

GroundProbe Head of Geotechnical, Peter Saunders, explained how the service’s positive results and statistics speak for themselves.

“Together, our GSS team have detected and provided early notification to site of 1,440 slope failures, validated 3,615 alarms and managed 44,608 unwanted alarms,” Saunders said.

“GroundProbe also has the world’s largest library of wall folders. Our experts have unprecedented access to this data, gaining a unique perspective on geotechnical monitoring borne from analysing thousands of slope failures and assisting with numerous incident investigations.”

This newest monitoring centre in Belo Horizonte will provide the same services to customers, including: GSS-Remote, GroundProbe’s 24-hour remote monitoring solution; GSS-Training, its specialised SSR and laser training service; and GSS-Reporting, the company’s customised analysis and reporting service.

GroundProbe reacts to geohazard monitoring concerns with RGR-Velox

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GroundProbe says it has launched the industry’s most advanced doppler radar for reactive geohazard monitoring, the RGR-Velox.

RGR-Velox (Reactive Geohazard Radar) is a military-precision reactive monitoring and alarming system for tailings dam breaches, large slope failures, landslides and avalanches. It detects, tracks and alarms on moving geohazards in real time, keeping people, assets and communities safe by giving warning of a breach or collapse, GroundProbe, an Orica subsidiary, explained.

The RGR-Velox is the latest technology to be born out of GroundProbe’s Research and Development (R&D) and product development programs, and the most recent innovation to be added to the company’s fleet of technologies and services.

This is GroundProbe’s first product release in reactive monitoring, with the company now offering both predictive and reactive monitoring technologies. Its predictive monitoring solutions (Slope Stability Radars and lasers) detect and warn people and communities of impending mine collapses, dam failures, rockfalls and landslides. The RGR-Velox, a reactive monitoring solution, tracks and alarms on already moving geohazards, post-collapse, giving early warning to take action or evacuate through alarm outputs such as lights, sirens, pagers or phones.

GroundProbe CEO, David Noon, said the company has a customer-oriented approach to innovation and technology which has led to the development of this reactive monitoring solution.

“GroundProbe already has the industry’s broadest range of geotechnical monitoring technologies and services, yet we continually strive to design and develop new solutions to best meet our customers’ needs,” he said. “This technology was a true collaboration between many facets of our organisation, a valued customer and a key partner.

“By having our customers actively participate in our product development process, we are able to co-create value and produce the most beneficial solution offering.”

The RGR-Velox is the highest precision, fastest scanning and longest range doppler radar in the market, according to the company. Military-grade hardware is combined with GroundProbe’s safety-critical software, alarming and systems to provide, it says, unrivalled confidence.

GroundProbe’s VP Technology, Fernanda Carrea, said the RGR-Velox sets the new standard in emergency geohazard monitoring.

“The RGR-Velox sweep-scans an entire area instantly, much like taking a radar photograph, to capture actionable information as it happens and provide new details of the scene every 0.25 seconds,” Carrea said. “Perhaps most impressive is the device’s ability to differentiate and locate small moving objects with precise accuracy, even when moving at just 0.05 m/s.

“Its alarming capabilities are completely customisable, ensuring users are empowered to design alarms tailored entirely to their specific site challenges and conditions.”

Noon said this latest piece of technology reinforces GroundProbe’s number one value and commitment to safety.

“At GroundProbe, we aim to keep people, assets and communities safe through better risk management and the RGR-Velox is the ultimate assistant in reactive safety monitoring.”

GroundProbe extends Americas mine, tailings dam monitoring reach with Santiago centre

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GroundProbe has launched a dedicated monitoring centre in Santiago, Chile, to, it says, provide 24/7 real-time radar and laser monitoring services for tailings dams and mines throughout North and South America.

The centre connects remote sites with industry experts in three languages, according to GroundProbe, with the facility monitoring live slope stability data and reacting to alarms to ensure the maximum safety of people and communities.

Crewed by 45 specialised geotechnical engineers, these centre provide 24/7 expertise to over 30 customers globally, GroundProbe says.

GroundProbe, owned by Orica, is a global leader in real-time technologies used to detect instabilities and predict when mine and dam collapses will occur.

From a launch event in Santiago, GroundProbe CEO Brian Gillespie said the new centre marked an important step for GroundProbe’s future growth, especially for South and North America.

“We’ve witnessed a boom in Brazil for continuous, real-time monitoring of tailings dams, with a huge increase in demand for our remote, 24/7 geotechnical expertise,” Gillespie said.

“We saw it as an absolute necessity to bolster our offering and extend our support services from Asia Pacific to the Americas.

“Placing the centre in Santiago and ensuring its tri-lingual capabilities allows us to do just that.”

GroundProbe has, for many years, been providing 24/7 assistance to customers from its Asia-Pacific monitoring centre. The addition of a second location, operating in Spanish, Portuguese and English, sees GroundProbe remain at the forefront of our industry, the company said.

David Noon, COO of GroundProbe, said: “Our Santiago remote monitoring centre is operational from day one, with our teams already monitoring many tailings dams, a massive hydro-electric dam and even a landslide on a national highway in Colombia.

“Not only is it essential to our customers that our team are native Spanish and Portuguese speakers, but having a centre in Latin America shows our level of commitment to the region and to creating jobs in the local communities we serve.”

To mark the launch, GroundProbe and Orica hosted an event with key customers, industry representatives and stakeholders (pictured).

GroundProbe’s monitoring centres are home to its Geotechnical Support Services (GSS) team and dedicated team of geotechnical support engineers.

The second monitoring centre in Santiago will provide the same services to customers, including: GSS-Remote, a 24-hour remote monitoring solution; GSS-Training, a SSR and laser training service; and GSS-Reporting, the company’s customised analysis and reporting service.