The Application of Positioning

Systems in Open-pit Mining

Speaker: Rob Lorimer,
Editor of GPS World’s Professional OEM Newsletter

Guest Speaker: Nunzio Gambale

CEO and co-founder of Locata Corporation
1. What is open-pit mining?
2. What are some of the trends driving technology adoption?
3. What are the common applications using positioning systems?
4. Who are some of the solution suppliers using positioning technology?
5. What alternative positioning solutions are under test or being used?
6. Exhibit: Locata, revolutionary “local GPS” location technology.
7. What impact do solutions for mining have on the wider positioning
marketplace?
Interaction
• Poll questions provide real-time feedback on items of interest to
the audience
• 2 Polls during this webinar
• Please ask questions as we go through the webinar
• Nunzio and I will try and answer as many as I can at the end
Follow Up
• Any questions I don’t answer today we will follow up
- Individually …or
- In subsequent Professional OEM editorial
• Next P-OEM will include a summary of the poll results
1. What is open-pit mining?
2. What are some of the trends driving technology adoption?
3. What are the common applications using positioning systems?
4. Who are some of the solution suppliers using positioning technology?
5. What alternative positioning solutions are under test or being used?
6. Exhibit: Locata, revolutionary “local GPS” location technology.
7. What impact do solutions for mining have on the wider positioning
marketplace?
Access Economics 2008
• Over 100 mines shifting more than 50
million tonnes per annum
• 600-700 mines shifting 10-50 million
tonnes per annum
• Approx 1,500 mines shifting 1-10 million
tonnes per annum
• 10,000’s of quarries and smaller mines
moving under 1 million tonnes per annum
1. What is open-pit mining?
2. What are some of the trends driving technology adoption?
3. What are the common applications using positioning systems?
4. Who are some of the solution suppliers using positioning technology?
5. What alternative positioning solutions are under test or being used?
6. Exhibit: Locata, revolutionary “local GPS” location technology.
7. What impact do solutions for mining have on the wider positioning
marketplace?
Productivity Quality Safety
• Cost/tonne • Selective mining • Fatalities
• Tonnes/machine • Differential pricing • LTI
• Tonnes/person • Downstream • Legislation
processing
 Autonomous
Machines

Artificial
Intelligence
Machine
Automation
Machine
Control
Machine
Guidance

Technology Fusion
1. What is open-pit mining?
2. What are some of the trends driving technology adoption?
3. What are the common applications using positioning systems?
4. Who are some of the solution suppliers using positioning technology?
5. What alternative positioning solutions are under test or being used?
6. Exhibit: Locata, revolutionary “local GPS” location technology.
7. What impact do solutions for mining have on the wider positioning
marketplace?
 HEAVY EARTH
HAUL AUXILLARY LIGHT MOBILE
MOVING PEOPLE
TRUCKS EQUIPMENT VEHICLES PLANT
MACHINERY

PRODUCTIVITY

QUALITY

SAFETY
1. What is open-pit mining?
2. What are some of the trends driving technology adoption?
3. What are the common applications using positioning systems?
4. Who are some of the solution suppliers using positioning
technology?
5. What alternative positioning solutions are under test or being used?
6. Exhibit: Locata, revolutionary “local GPS” location technology.
7. What impact do solutions for mining have on the wider positioning
marketplace?
1. What is open-pit mining?
2. What are some of the trends driving technology adoption?
3. What are the common applications using positioning systems?
4. Who are some of the solution suppliers using positioning technology?
5. What alternative positioning solutions are under test or being
used?
6. Exhibit: Locata, revolutionary “local GPS” location technology.
7. What impact do solutions for mining have on the wider positioning
marketplace?
 HEAVY EARTH
HAUL AUXILLARY LIGHT MOBILE
MOVING PEOPLE
TRUCKS EQUIPMENT VEHICLES PLANT
MACHINERY

GPS ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
GNSS ■ ■ ■
HI INERTIAL ■ ■ ■

LO INERTIAL ■ ■ ■
RADIO
POSITIONING ■ ■ ■

RADIO
LOCATION ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
RFID ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
LASER/EDM ■ ■ ■

RADAR ■ ■ ■
1. What is open-pit mining?
2. What are some of the trends driving technology adoption?
3. What are the common applications using positioning systems?
4. Who are some of the solution suppliers using positioning technology?
5. What alternative positioning solutions are under test or being used?
6. Exhibit: Locata, revolutionary “local GPS” location technology.
7. What impact do solutions for mining have on the wider positioning
marketplace?
• What is Locata?
 = your own GPS.
Locally.
The problem, put simply…

“GPS is like
Swiss cheese…
…it’s full of holes”
Customer Quote –
a fleet manager, trying to meet
spec for his GPS application
The problem, FIXED simply…

“LocataNet is
the local GPS…
…wherever it’s needed”

Locata is the first & only technology which

can
replicate GPS – on the ground.
LocataLite
Transceiver
Model LL2
• LocataLite
• Unique new device
• Local equivalent to a
GPS satellite
• Autonomous and
independent
synchronization
• NOT a pseudolite!
• Locata - high precision Local Positioning System which
replicates GPS locally
• Free spectrum globally: 2.4 GHz (Wi-Fi) band
• Works “just like” GPS
• To a user looks like “just another constellation”
• Easy integration: add to position solution like GPS,
GLONASS or GALILEO
• Extremely flexible & configurable
• No atomic clocks. No “near/far”. No reference network.
No differential correction. No data links.
• What are some of the common positioning
problems which Locata addresses?
 GPS

GLONASS

Satellite masking in deep pits or by high-walls

5 to 35% affect on availability (1 to 8 hours/day)
Some outages continuous for more than 2 hours
Satellite orbit coverage - Good in many areas but…
Very poor in far northern and southern latitudes
Orbits generally favor east-west pit orientations
Multipath (reflected and bouncing signals causing errors)
 GPS-only
satellite
availability
–
South
American
mine

1% Excellent performance
12% Good performance
26% Average performance
27% Below-average performance (outages likely)
>34% Inoperable (RTK not possible)
• How does Locata solve those problems?
Venetia Diamond Mine – South Africa
First trials with Leica Geosystems

A LocataNet provides centimeter

level positioning without differential
corrections or reference stations
 LocataLite Installation
GPS AND
LOCATA
ANTENNAE

GPS ANTENNA LOCATA

ANTENNA
LOCATA
RECEIVERS
UNDER
LOCATA RECEIVER SKIRT
(INSIDE CAB) LEICA
DRILLNAV
LEICA GPS
ENCLOSURE
• Results?
 100 GPS
Locata

Leica real-world,
80

operational
system.
60

Gold Mine,
Western Australia
north (m)

40

Data: April 2010.

20

 GPS 0

 Locata
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
east (m)
 GPS
Locata

Leica real-world, 70

operational
system. 65

Gold Mine,
60

Western Australia
north (m)

Data: April 2010. 55

50

 GPS 45

 Locata
35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75
east (m)
Leica real-world,
operational
70
system.
Gold Mine,
Western Australia
Data: April 2010. 65

60
 GPS
 Locata
north (m)

55
 0.05
Leica real-world,
east (m)
0
operational
system. -0.05
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Gold Mine, 0.05

north (m)

Western Australia 0

Data: April 2010. -0.05

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

0.1
height (m)

Differences 0
from RTK-GPS
-0.1
solution 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
epoch
• Performance in the pit?

• Stand-alone Locata solutions

• Against an RTK-GPS “truth”

RMS 95% Horizontal Error: 5cm (2”)

RMS 95% Vertical Error: 10cm (4”)
• What are some of the advantages of the
Locata approach?
 = your own GPS.
• There is NOTHING GLOBAL about positioning in a mine.
• It is inherently a LOCAL POSITIONING requirement.

Locata now allows any entity… mine, construction site,

port, warehouse, airport, strategic asset - and eventually
entire cities… to determine for themselves the level of
positioning they wish to deploy, under their OWN LOCAL
CONTROL, with complete autonomy.
1. What is open-pit mining?
2. What are some of the trends driving technology adoption?
3. What are the common applications using positioning systems?
4. Who are some of the solution suppliers using positioning technology?
5. What alternative positioning solutions are under test or being used?
6. Exhibit: Locata, revolutionary “local GPS” location technology.
7. What impact do solutions for mining have on the wider
positioning marketplace?
• Mining is a leading innovator
– Machine control for earth moving machinery
– GPS/Glonass
– Positioning based safety systems
• Mining is one of the hardest outdoors
positioning environments
• Successful mining solutions spread rapidly
and globally
 QUESTIONS?

Rob Lorimer Nunzio Gambale

[email protected] [email protected]

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