Robots in mining: which tasks can be automated today
Inspection, labs, hardfacing wear parts, cathodes and palletizing: where a robot pays off in a mining operation and what to solve first.
When people talk about robots in mining they think of autonomous trucks, but most opportunities sit around the operation: dangerous, dirty or repetitive tasks done by people today that an industrial or mobile robot can do with less risk. These are the five most common.
1. Inspecting tunnels, conveyors and electrical rooms
A quadruped robot tours a programmed route with cameras, thermal and gas sensors, climbs stairs and returns to charge on its own. It detects out-of-range temperatures, leaks or abnormal noises and generates a report. People stop entering hazardous areas to do rounds and focus on deciding what to do with what the robot found.
2. Sample lab
The lab repeats the same tasks hundreds of times a day: receiving samples, weighing them, moving them between preparation and analysis instruments, and logging each step. A 6-axis robot or a cobot does that loop without identification errors and without exposing staff to dust and reagents.
3. Hardfacing wear parts
Buckets, teeth, liners and rollers wear out and are repaired with hardfacing. It is long, hot and smoky work. A welding robot, with a positioner or on a rail depending on part size, lays even beads and leaves the welder programming and checking instead of spending hours with the torch.
4. Cathodes and anodes in the tankhouse
Copper electrowinning and electrorefining handle thousands of plates a day: cathode stripping, inspection, plate straightening and stacking. They are heavy tasks in an acidic environment, and one of the areas where robotics is most proven. Each project is designed around the existing stripping machine and flow.
5. Bag palletizing
Reagents, lime, concentrate or plant products in bags of 25 kg or more: a palletizing robot stacks to the pallet pattern and takes people off the station that causes the most back injuries.
What to solve before robotizing at a mine
Three things decide whether the project works: the environment (dust, humidity, gases and the altitude of many Andean operations, which affects motors and cooling), integration with site safety and control systems, and support, because the plant is usually far away. That is why critical spares, remote support and who travels for commissioning should be defined from the start.
