MINOTAUR – A game-changer in mining technology

The future of mining operations is set for a paradigm shift with a major technological breakthrough. In a newly launched project, Luleå University of Technology, in collaboration with partners from industries and academia from across the Europe, is developing an entirely new concept of mining ore exploration, featuring biologically inspired resource seeking, shaping novel robotic designs.

“MINOTAUR takes a fundamentally fresh look at exploration drilling autonomy and ore seeking that aims to make it more environment-friendly and socially acceptable”, Anton Koval, Associate Senior Lecturer in Robotics and AI says.

Due to how mining is currently done, with a lot of vertical drilling, it is not the most attractive in terms of environmental, societal or economic aspects. However, this is where the project ‘MINOTAUR’ comes in play. By developing new smaller and efficient robots along with complex autonomy mining will completely transform.

In contemporary mining a lot is done on a surface level. A lot of drill holes must be made that brings up dust and causes noise. Many different tests must be done in order to find out if it is worthwhile drilling in an area. This is achieved by going to geologists, geophysicists and geochemists to have tests done along with satellite images, which requires a lot of resources.

“Firstly, conventional mining approaches are highly expensive, largely due to need for human involvement inside hazardous underground tunnels. Additionally, the current practice of extensive surface level vertical drilling is not great for the environment. Secondly, there is no guarantee that adequate ore will be present at a drilling site; current methods are based on estimates that could prove inaccurate”, Avijit Banerjee, Associate Senior Lecturer in Robotics and AI says.

New robots and advanced technology

MINOTAUR will make it possible to reduce the number of vertical drill holes and to use novel concepts of autonomous robots for exploration drilling, ore seeking and mapping. Not only will this reduce the impact on the environmental massively, but it will also yield all of the aforementioned information, such as assisting in the evaluation if there is, and how much, ore there is in the area and taking profitable decisions.

The newly designed robot will utilise a highly advanced sensors in combination with the complex intelligence developed by the Robotics and AI team at Lulea University of Technology to essentially scout the subterranean depths.

“There are three main components to this project, all under the main goal to propose the next generation of exploratory drilling technologies. The first is the actual drilling, which will be done by the novel robot. The second is the sensor, which will locate ore and map the subterranean underground. The third is discovering how much ore there is in the area”, Avijit Banerjee says.

MINOTAUR is a Horizon Europe project, that brings together efforts from competent and experienced partners including, Technical University of Denmark, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, IST-ID, University of Patras, Industrial Minerals Association Europe, Community Forged Innovation, and TERNA MAG S.A.

Together they will forge a new way to mine minerals which will be less taxing on the environment and on the societal infrastructure.

“It is a very exciting project that will span from now and three years forward. This new way of mining might not be too unsimilar to how we will mine in space later on”, Anton Koval says.