Australian-based tech company Lunar Outpost Oceania is looking to partner with mining companies to reduce human exposure to hotspots by removing staff entirely from high-risk tasks and environments.

Safety, decarbonisation and productivity benefits are part of a package that comes with the development of an interoperable autonomous robotic workforce undertaking multiple tasks on mining operations. 

Shannon Wall is the company’s business development specialist in Queensland and says it could change the landscape of mining.

The system he calls ‘swarm robotics’, is made up of smaller assets working in synergy across all key operational mining areas. 

Mr Wall says removing operators from dangerous environments is the obvious benefit on the micro scale.

“The industry feedback that we’re getting at the moment is to remove those high-risk tasks and a key one I thought was the blasting,” says Mr Wall.

“In underground Australian mines there are two blasts per day at least. When they do those blasts (in hardrock mining) the deputy has to go down and with an atmospheric tester, make sure that the environment is safe for the return of workers. 

“By sending in an autonomous platform, not only are you removing the human from that task, you are also developing key efficiencies in time and by saving just half-an-hour a shift across these operations at scale, that returns a lot of efficiency.”

The Australian company is run out of RMIT in Melbourne and is the offshoot of US-based Lunar Outpost which has developed systems for moon landings. 

“We have experience in interoperability not only with orbiters but with landers and rovers,” he said.

“If we can bring that to the table with mining resource companies having that value chain handshake across the resource industry from extraction to the ROM to the plant, to the rail to the port, and be able to have that interoperability across those platforms, they are key drivers.”

Mr Wall says the company is looking to partner with miners to jointly develop systems.

“One of the key things about early adoption is that a company has a lot of say in shaping that pilot program,” he says.

“Early adoption brings other key milestones to the company that is partnering with us … to better aim at their site-specific needs but it also sets them up well from a price point perspective. 

“Once we are commercialised, having early adopters through the phase, 1, phase 2 pilot brings an ongoing process point efficiency for that company’s operations.”

Lunar Outpost describes itself as an ‘advanced spacecraft and robotics solutions developer’.

‘Our expertise in advanced spacecraft and robotics solutions is unmatched and we are committed to driving progress in space exploration,’ the website says.

‘Lunar Outpost has operated technology successfully on Mars, deployed over 5,000 autonomous systems on Earth and delivered space flight rovers that are ready for launch.’ 

Lunar Outpost Oceania is co-lead in the ELO2 consortium to design Australia’s first moon rover.

It is one of two Australian consortia working on the design with funding from the Australian Space Agency’s Moon to Mars Trailblazer Program Stage 1 with an ambition to land a rover, to be named ‘Roo-ver’, on the moon as part of a future NASA Artemis mission later this decade.