Tag Archives: Raffi Jabrayan

Exyn launches Nexys, a modular 3D mapping solution for mining sector

Mine surveying, Mining events, Mining services, Mining software, , , , ,

Exyn Technologies has announced Exyn Nexys, a cutting-edge modular 3D mapping solution specifically designed to meet the unique needs of the mining industry, among others, at the SME MineXchange Conference and Expo, in Phoenix, Arizona.

Nexys stands out as a benchmark in autonomous mapping technology, delivering unmatched flexibility, speed and accuracy for surveying and inspection tasks in the most challenging and intricate environments, Exyn claims.

“Nexys boasts an innovative modular design that supports deployment in various configurations, including handheld, backpack-mounted, vehicle-mounted, drone-integrated, or via ground robots,” the company says. “This versatility renders Nexys an indispensable tool for comprehensive mapping in diverse environments, particularly underground and indoor spaces unique to mining, as well as rugged outdoor terrains.”

Equipped with advanced LiDAR technology and Exyn’s proprietary SLAM algorithms, Nexys achieves fast and efficient data capture speeds and real-time point cloud colourisation, the company says. When mounted on a robot, its Autonomy Level 4 (AL-4) capabilities enable intelligent autonomous navigation through dynamic, complex environments, guaranteeing extensive coverage even in GPS-denied areas critical for mining.

With integrated hemispherical cameras, Nexys provides immediate visualisation of detailed, colourised data directly onto a 3D point cloud. Capable of capturing up to 1.9 million scan points per second, it guarantees survey-grade accuracy up to 5 mm at 1 sigma, essential for precision-driven surveying and mapping operations in the mining sector, Exyn says.

Designed to IP67 standards within an ISO 9001 certified framework, Nexys is engineered to endure the harshest mining conditions. Its ergonomic design is complemented by a comprehensive suite of accessories, including GPS modules, protective cages and Drone Link for seamless robot integration, enhancing its utility in numerous mining scenarios.

Brandon Torres Declet, CEO of Exyn Technologies, said: “We are thrilled to introduce Exyn Nexys to the mining world, a reflection of Exyn’s unwavering commitment to innovation and our ambition to transform the landscape of mapping and surveying.”

Raffi Jabrayan, VP, Business Development of Exyn, added: “Nexys is specifically engineered to navigate the complex and hazardous environments of underground mines, offering unmatched accuracy, efficiency and safety in orebody mapping, stope condition monitoring and operational planning. This is a significant leap forward in our mission to enhance mine productivity and worker safety through cutting-edge autonomous mapping solutions.”

Jaguar Mining to deploy ExynAero autonomous robot for cavity monitoring in Brazil

Automation, IoT, Mine surveying, Mining safety, Mining services, Mining software, Precious metals, , , , , , , , , ,

Exyn Technologies and NSS Canada say they have expanded their footprint with Jaguar Mining in response to a growing demand for autonomous robots to capture critical data in complex, GPS-denied environments underground.

Historically, mining in geographically complex areas has been dangerous and intensive in terms of labour, time and cost. The evolution of autonomous aerial robots provides mining companies with faster and safer data capture in critical underground operations leading to more streamlined planning and workflows.

After a successful demonstration at the Caeté mining complex (which includes the Pilar and Roça Grande mines and the Caeté Plant, located in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil), Jaguar Mining made the decision to purchase Exyn’s autonomous robot, the ExynAero, to be used as a cavity monitoring solution in its underground mining operations.

The ExynAero is a fully autonomous aerial robot that intelligently navigates and maps complex GPS-denied industrial environments without a pilot, keeping employees safe and maximising beyond-line-of-sight-and-communications data collection. Equipped with Autonomy Level 4 – the highest level in the industry, according to Exyn – survey teams can confidently send the ExynAero on autonomous missions into open stopes and and other underground cavities knowing that all computation and data collection is stored on-board. Following this with Exyn’s post-processing pipeline, survey teams can refine, subsample and georeference their data sets for volumetric calculations and other mining operations, it added.

Jaguar, which produces more than 95,000 oz/y of gold, has been using Autonomy Level 4 in this latest deployment, Eyxn confirmed.

“We are thrilled to deliver innovations that help reduce risk to humans and increase efficiency and productivity in mining operations,” Raffi Jabrayan, Exyn’s VP of Commercial Sales and Business Development, said. “Our technology can do in a few minutes what traditionally took hours, with countless risks to surveyors working in potentially dangerous environments.”

Bruno Lalonde, NSS Canada President, added: “NSS Canada is proud to provide innovative solutions to help underground mines like Jaguar Mining Inc safeguard employees while optimising efficiency. The addition of Exyn autonomous solutions will help their team improve OPEX, increase safety and get actionable data from dangerous environments faster.”

Eric Duarte, Vice President of Operations for Jaguar Mining, added: “The introduction of Exyn autonomous technologies at Jaguar Mining is another step towards our commitment to quality, by increasing safety, operational efficiency and cost effectiveness in our underground operations.”

Exyn’s drone-based mining autonomy ambitions taking flight

Automation, Communications in mining, Explosives and blasting, IoT, Mine surveying, Mining equipment, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Having already achieved the highest documented level of aerial autonomy – level 4A – with its drone-based solutions, Exyn Technologies is striving for further industry firsts, Raffi Jabrayan, VP of Business Development and Commercial Sales, says.

One of its more recent breakthroughs came in Germany at the K+S’ Werra mine site, where a team demonstrated the use of the ExynAero™ and ExynPak™ at an underground salt mine.

Over the course of three days underground, Exyn’s field engineers successfully flew multiple autonomous missions in hard-to-reach areas while capturing rich, high-fidelity point clouds in a fraction of the time it would take traditional cavity monitoring systems, according to the company.

Jabrayan explained: “Several drone companies had previously attempted an autonomous mission to scan the immense cavities this specific site has, but the dust interference meant most of these missions ended within seconds.

“We were able to fly in some cavities completely beyond visual line of sight, mapping areas in a fraction of the time the teams would normally take for such manual inspections. In all, we were able to carry out a six-minute autonomous flight at the site.”

While the company did not carry out any specific modifications to its ExynAero platform to conduct such a flight, Jabrayan acknowledged that ongoing design and software improvements over the last year had enabled the company to accurately detect both dust and thin wires underground.

In addition to this, the company also displayed the capabilities of its handheld ExynPak solutions while on site in Germany.

The ExynPak, according to Exyn, can provide the world’s first real-time colourised point cloud visualisation on a handheld LIDAR scanner, capturing precise, colourised 3D models 20-30 times faster than a traditional stationery tripod or terrestrial scanner.

Powered by ExynAI™, the ExynPak ‘drapes’ real-time RGB information captured through two hemispherical fixed cameras onto point clouds created by a gimballed Velodyne LIDAR Puck LITE, providing operators a complete colourised 360° view of their environment, Exyn says.

At the Werra mine site, the Exyn team was able to capture a colourised cloud where the stratification of the rock could be clearly seen in the scan, enabling the K+S team to obtain data it would likely never be able to replicate in any other way, according to the company.

Jabrayan says such information could see operators plan their mining processes around the colourised captures, following mineralisation identified by the scans to ensure no economic ore had been missed after mucking out.

At the Werra mine site, Exyn’s field engineers successfully flew multiple autonomous missions in hard-to-reach areas while capturing rich, high-fidelity point clouds in a fraction of the time it would take traditional cavity monitoring systems

 

The ExynPak is likely to become a core part of Exyn’s next aerial autonomy offering for open-pit mining, powered by ExynAI, which enables safe flight in the most dangerous industrial environments.

“We have done some work in terms of moving our flights to the surface,” Jabrayan said. “It could cover various aspects – tailings monitoring, highwall scans…there are lots of requirements for it. We are actively working on integrating GPS into our ExynAI stack for outdoor autonomous flights, however, it’s not ready to be pushed to customers just yet.”

The company is currently working on surveys of ground-based resources, such as stockpiles, using a handheld ExynPak, plus carrying out aerial flights in manual mode.

Reaching the level of autonomy it has underground will most likely involve the help of its collaboration partner, EY, and a third company providing “software and visualisation input”, Jabrayan says, adding that he expects to see this autonomous solution come to light in 2023.

Earlier this year, Exyn, in partnership with Maestro Digital Mine, presented an aerial drone fitted with a Maestro gas monitoring Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) device.

This new gas monitoring drone, which integrates critical gas sensors onto the ExynAero and ExynPak platforms, is effectively the “quickest and safest mobile gas monitor on the planet”, Michael Gribbons, CEO and Co-founder for Maestro, said.

Powered by ExynAI’s multi-sensor fusion capabilities, gas sensor readings are captured while the robot is in flight and displayed in real time via a ruggedised tablet, Exyn explained. These sensor readings are saved with precise coordinates in a high-fidelity point cloud that can be exported and examined in a variety of mining software.

Jabrayan says a lot of mines have reached out to the companies since first presenting the solution at the SME MineXchange Annual Conference & Expo in Salt Lake City, earlier this year.

“They are interested in the benefits such a solution could provide in terms of safety and productivity,” he said. “By flying the gas sensing drone underground soon after a blast, it could take the necessary readings and issue a notice to another system that it is safe to re-enter the area.”

This could see more mines shift away from re-entry processes based on out-of-date manual gas readings, to a system that is much more accurate and shaves – potentially – hours off operational downtime.

Exyn is closing in on a long-term trial agreement with at least one miner in Australia looking to test out this gas-sensing drone solution, according to Jabrayan.

“The long-term plan is to develop a drone-in-a-box solution that can reside underground and be flown immediately after a blast to offer the quickest possible readings,” he said. “Remote autonomous mapping of this type could see Exyn provide data to shift operators as they are heading underground, allowing them to get a picture of the environment ahead of reaching the location.”

The incorporation of such data into mine site operational processes could see drone-based solutions become vital to the running of mines in the future, and Exyn, through its post-processing pipeline, ExSLAM, is looking to enable this.

ExSLAM extracts the raw cloud from robot logs and refines it for third-party software, using a factor graph optimisation algorithm to create low-drift point cloud maps.

Jabrayan says the company continually receives plaudits from customers about the ease of use of this solution, explaining that Exyn is one of the few companies that georeferences its maps inside an existing coordinate frame.

“From there, we are able to detect all the survey points, download them, georeference them and push the data to any end-user software,” he said.

Exyn, Jabrayan says, is software agnostic when it comes to this process, but he did admit the company was in advanced talks with some leading mining software companies that could see its mapping data integrated directly into their platforms.

“We are also working with certain companies to use robotic process automation to make it a one-button process to scan, go directly into the end-user software, and create a mesh that can be used,” he said.

“We remain focused on using our technology and R&D to provide the best solution to customers in order for them to be as productive as possible and, of course, work in a more efficient and safe manner.”

Exyn drones help Rupert Resources map Pahtavaara gold mine

IoT, Mine surveying, Mining equipment, Mining services, Mining software, Precious metals, , , , , , , , , ,

Exyn Technologies says it has completed a successful mission for Rupert Resources at its historic Pahtavaara gold mine in northern Finland.

By harnessing Exyn’s autonomous drones, Rupert Resources was able to produce highly detailed 3D models of the mine, which is otherwise completely inaccessible to traditional CMS tools or even manually piloted drones, Exyn said.

“Rupert Resources needed to plan for a potential restart of operations by estimating tonnage previously removed from the mine, as well as calculating the remaining ore in heavily restricted areas,” the company said.

Exyn’s fully autonomous aerial robots mapped 30 stopes in three days with a single drone. In addition, Exyn mounted a version of its robot to a car to scan all access drifts which, together with the stope maps, provided a complete mine map in under four days.

Jukka Nieminen, Managing Director of Rupert Finland, said: “Rupert is actively seeking new technologies where we think big gains can be made in terms of safety, productivity and accuracy.

“Exyn achieved accurate assessment of the volume of remaining stopes at Pahtavaara with an unprecedented level of detail, and obviously the use of remote technologies means that this was achieved with a greatly reduced degree of risk. We have no hesitation in recommending this technology.”

Exyn’s autonomous drones are built on the exynAI™ platform, enabling aerial robots to fly intelligently without a human pilot using a multitude of high-tech sensors and AI-based software, the company says. The system operates without the need for GPS or external communications, and is deployed as an all-in-one software and hardware package.

Raffi Jabrayan, Director of Markets & Industries, Exyn Technologies, said: “Our mission with Rupert presented some of the most difficult and seemingly impossible challenges to navigating, analysing, and assessing a mine – which therefore makes it exemplary in demonstrating the heights of Exyn’s capabilities.

“Our AI-based software and state-of-the-art sensors were able to get the job done quickly and safely, proving once again that no exploration task is impossible for Exyn drones.”