After a long delay and missed connections with the postponement of the Mine Ventilation Society of South Africa (MVSSA) in previous years, Dwyka Mining Services (Pty) Ltd (DMS) will be exhibiting at this year’s event at Emperors Palace 14-15 September 2022.
The genesis of Dwyka centered around supporting ventilation, occupational health and environmental solutions which has evolved into the Human plus Machine solutions stack represented today. Jamie van Schoor CEO shared, “Returning to the MVSSA conference today reminds me of our early days at Dwyka and reinforces our company’s mission to empower teams with technology for safer mining practices. We continually demonstrate how augmenting human effort with technology can elevate the lives of miners, especially around safety and we are proud to represent our partners Boston Dynamics, Clemcorp Australia, Emesent, Howden Ventsim and Maestro Digital Mine this week as a collaborative pursuit.”
Representing many of the world’s leading global brands in mining, DMS will be showcasing many of their cutting edge solutions to make technology tangible to delegates. As an end-to-end integrator they will be sharing three key technology enablers at their booth; Augmented Reality (AR) with a Clemcorp Virtual Fan Experience, Robotic DOGital Mobile Environment Monitoring with Boston Dynamics, Maestro Digital Mine and Howden Ventsim CONTROL and a collaboration with Terramin dust suppression solutions.
AUGMENTED REALITY IN VENTILATION
Clemcorp is globally regarded as developing high performance products that are expertly designed to meet the toughest conditions. This is proven by the established and continued supply of Clemcorp fans throughout the African market. Clemcorp have been extending the product range through continued investment in R&D and technology adoption and now assist many underground African clients with off the shelf as well as bespoke Ventilation on Demand solutions.
“As proud partners of Clemcorp Australia, I’m personally very excited about the opportunity to deliver end-to-end ventilation control solutions at our client’s operations especially as we begin automating control philosophy with interoperable partners Howden Ventsim with their CONTROL software suite. Our DMS team has proven fan control is possible but extending this success rests with the adoption and resilience of robust, high broadband connectivity forming the building blocks for future ventilation on-demand investments,” says Jamie van Schoor.
“Africa is an important market for us and with recent adoption and localisation efforts underway in South Africa, we are excited to support Dwyka’s market development efforts from down under. Adopting new technologies and designs is a fundamental part of our business and we are excited to be showcasing our fans and some new products in Augmented Reality (AR) using a HoloLens setup on the booth which I just can’t get enough of personally!” shares Justin Coetzee Clemcorp General Manager at Clemcorp Australia.
Clients with access to their Vuforia library will be able to review a range of AR enabled designs for training, product familiarisation and AR assisted troubleshooting directly with a Clemcorp engineer. “With the ability to visualise our large secondary and excitingly our new range of large surface fans in AR means that familiarisation, training and adoption will be possible anywhere with a HoloLens setup – even in our 3mx4m booth!” shares Hannes Burger Mining Technologist at DMS who is presenting a paper during the conference on “Using Hovermap to Capture the Reality of Airways”.
Features and benefits of Clemcorp’s VOD Control offerings on show include:
- Automated Mining Ventilation Louver: These devices assist with the controlled distribution of primary airflow onto the various working levels. Automated louvers enable operators to automate ventilation flows on levels without utilising manual drop board regulator.
- Automated Butterfly Dampers: These devices can be automated to enable complete control of a secondary ventilation system. This helps to manage ventilation flows and reduce costs.
- Dual Speed Axial Fans : Clemcorp’s range of Dual Speed Axial fans provide a low cost entry point to capture power significant savings from simple motor speed adjustment.
- Remote Start DOL 1000v and 525v Fan Starters: these fan starters are one of many axial fan starters that Clemcorp supplies specifically for the mining industry now being manufactured in South Africa. These are created specifically for secondary fan applications and include a range of features that can help to optimise your fan fleet.
ROBOTICS IN VENTILATION
Following a successful showcase at Mining Indaba, Boston Dynamics Spot Enterprise robot, equipped with Maestro’s IIoT gas sensor and a new Emesent Hovermap ST will be demonstrated which can be operated on mine-site to detect and localize hazardous gasses, like Carbon Monoxide, without putting mining and ventilation teams in danger. Ventilation and mining teams will easily be able to add different gas sensors onto the connected Zephyr Air Quality Station, capturing critical environmental data to proactively identify gas or temperature challenges.
“The established client base of Maestro Digital Mine environmental sensors will allow us to make the technology mobile for broader applications. We’re very excited about this DOGital integration with Maestro Digital Mine as a future partner payload for Boston Dynamics Spot Enterprise solution with Emesent’s Hovermap and look forward to continually improving worker safety for whole-of-mine deployment with our new best friend, Spot.” says van Schoor.
Boston Dynamics Spot Enterprise, is an agile mobile robot designed to navigate all types of terrain, allowing organisations to automate routine inspection tasks, capture data securely and safely, and allow for streamlined operations in complex and dangerous environments.
Using the Spot Enterprise on-board processing the data is shared wirelessly over WiFi and gas and temperature sensor readings are captured while the robot is in operation and displayed in real-time via the MaestroLink application. With the addition of a SLAM scanning unit sensor, like the Emesent Hovermap, readings can be saved with precise coordinates in a high-fidelity point cloud that can be exported and examined in a variety of mining software packages.
Hot off the press, R&D is currently underway to populate Spot’s recorded environmental data LIVE on Ventsim CONTROL. “As a business we are always looking for ways we can deliver more value to our clients. We are excited for Howden to be collaborating in this first to market trial for real-time mobile gas detection off of a robotic dog for a future of greater, more agile environmental monitoring of an underground operation. This opens up applications for remote blast re-entry examinations and ventilation network inspections post-blast and we are looking forward to seeing some of this data streamed live to our Howden booth across the way from Dwyka’s stand!” shares Stephan Bergh, Howden Africa’s Mining Lead and custodian of Ventsim in Africa.
“Collaborating with our mud-in-boots partner, Dwyka Mining Services who are always pushing the envelope with technology integration with pioneering brands like Boston Dynamics, is in turn pushing us to innovate and collaborate with our core purpose of enhancing lives by the pursuit of productivity and safety excellence,” says Michael Gribbons, CEO and Co-Founder of Maestro Digital Mine.
“The Spot Enterprise package allows us to access confined spaces and this information could be used to undertake remote gas inspections so that we can accelerate re-entry to target getting ore to surface sooner without comprising safety,” says Jamie van Schoor CEO of Dwyka Mining Services.
See Maestro Digital Mine long walk to freedom at this year’s Mining Indaba
DUST ABATEMENT IN VENTILATION
With an industry focus on dust measurement and mitigation, a collaborative approach with family business Terramin, will also be showcase a new range of manual and automated dust suppression and water atomization technologies.
“Whether your mine is a drill and blast operation or exploring innovative new rock cutting technologies, dust and airborne particulates will be a risk for occupational health. Monitoring dust is a challenging practice but practical applications exist and we intend sharing ours for industry adoption to improve the lives of our end-users who operate day-in and day-out underground in these environments,” states Martin van Schoor Founder and CEO Terramin.
Speaking to the nature of a solution architecture, “Connecting the dots between innovative devices like the TERRABLAST® from Terramin with state of the art software like Ventsim CONTROL for visualization and actionable risk mitigating actions over last-mile solutions like Maestro Digital Mine Plexus PowerNet is the reason we can quickly solve problems for our clients and demonstrate return on their investment. We expect automation to fundamentally change the way we monitor and mitigate ventilation risks with mine-wide connectivity solved,” concludes Jamie van Schoor.
Visit DMS at Emperors Palace 14-15 September to touch the technology. For more information about Boston Dynamics, Clemcorp Australia, Howden Ventsim and Terramin offerings, contact Dwyka Mining Services.
ABOUT DWYKA MINING SERVICES
Dwyka Mining Services is a pan-African mining technology platform that assists underground mining clients to adopt, and adapt to, evolving technologies with a focus on supporting efforts to improve safety, health and environmental conditions in the collaborative pursuit of the digital mine of the future.
ABOUT BOSTON DYNAMICS
Boston Dynamics’ mission is to imagine and create exceptional robots that enrich people’s lives. Building machines that can approximate the mobility, dexterity and agility of people and animals is a grand challenge. Curiosity and respect for the natural world are at the heart of our work on robots. We see products derived from this work as the next step in the human history of building machines to reduce the danger, repetition and physically difficult aspects of work. Learn more about Clemcorp solutions at www.bostondynamics.com
ABOUT CLEMCORP
Clemcorp Australia has over 30 years of experience in the ventilation industry and is a leading supplier of underground mining ventilation equipment. Clemcorp provides extensive engineering support, analysis and troubleshooting for a wide variety of projects around the world. Learn more about Clemcorp solutions at www.clemcorp.com.au
ABOUT HOWDEN VENTSIM
Accurately model, design, evaluate, and optimize underground mine ventilation systems. Ventsim DESIGN creates an accurate simulation of the ventilation environment. Real-time animated 3D graphics represent actual airway dimensions and shapes with animated airflows. Ventsim DESIGN is an expert tool that’s useful in all stages of ventilation design, from assessing needs and selecting hardware in the early planning stages to ongoing optimization of everyday operations in a working mine. Learn more about Howden Ventsim solutions at www.howden.com/en-gb/products/other-products/mining-software/ventsim
ABOUT MAESTRO DIGITAL MINE
Maestro Digital Mine manufactures Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) measurement and control instrumentation for the optimization of underground mine ventilation and underground digital networks for last mile communication. Maestro products are made exclusively for the underground mine automation, IT, and ventilation sectors, delivering energy savings and productivity improvements while meeting the highest health and safety standards. Learn more about Maestro’s digital solutions at www.maestrodigitalmine.com.
ABOUT TERRAMIN
Terramin innovates dust control, ventilation and safety solutions for the underground mining industry, and maximises productivity, efficiency and well-being in underground working environments. They have served mining companies in South Africa and internationally for over 40 years. Learn more about Terramin’s solutions at www.terramin.co.za.
