Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday!

Question: if surgeons can direct Da Vinci robots from thousands of miles away to perform surgeries, can humanoid robots be directed to perform mining functions underground?

By nature and practice, mining contends with dangerous conditions in hazardous environments including deep earth, ocean floors and riverbeds. Mine explosions, toxic gases, roof and wall collapses, flooding, and respirable dust are a few of the environmental hazards miners routinely face. Together, these hazards can cause accidents that often result in fatalities, traumatic injuries, and occupational diseases, with long-term health complications.

The safety and health challenges have become more critical as the industry strives to meet the rapidly growing demand for critical and strategic minerals, CSMs. Studies project ever-increasing demand for CSMs to support the transition to clean energy generation and to meet the needs of the “smart” technological future. In response, the mining industry is accelerating exploration and production of rare earth materials that require the extraction of mineral reserves from deeper, more complex, and inherently more hazardous mines.

Fortunately, automation can and is substantially reducing human exposure to life-threatening hazards in many industrial operations. Accordingly, the mining industry, in collaboration with university research, has embraced an ambitious "Zero Harm-Zero Fatality Vision" to eliminate mining fatalities. And the Mine Safety and Health Administration, MSHA, maintains that the most effective strategy is to eliminate hazards at the source. This principle points to a clear objective: removing workers from hazardous environments via AI-enabled autonomous systems and robotic mining technologies. In other words, implement Da Vinci humanoid miners to perform the most hazardous underground work in the mines of the future.

To help make mines of the future a reality, here at S&T we are establishing the Global Center for Mine Automation, Robotics, and Intelligence Exchange, known as MATRIX. The vision for MATRIX is for the mines of the future to comprise AI-enabled connected systems of autonomous equipment, robotic platforms and advanced communication networks to replace humans in hazardous environments, under the control of a highly skilled, AI-conversant workforce. Simply put, MATRIX will be a catalyst for this transformation, accelerating the industry's transition toward safer, smarter, more productive, more profitable, and more sustainable operations via research, technology innovation and workforce development.

For over 150 years, S&T has led major research, education and professional development initiatives in mining, explosives engineering and related earth sciences fields. We have over a century of established collaboration with the mining industry and significant current research programs in mine automation, robotics and artificial intelligence that form the basis for the “no humans in mines” safety initiative. By combining precision laser scanning with established 3D mine structure modeling, computer programs can create precise digital representations of underground mines, providing skilled human operators with the information needed to make informed decisions, reduce risk and increase productivity.

Consider mines of the future that are equipped with remote “mine surgery,” like remote patient surgery, along with image recognition technology, mine condition monitoring systems, improved network communication, and AI-enabled alert systems that provide data while minimizing the need for human workers underground.

Here at S&T, our mine operation automation research teams are working to provide critical contributions to critical national and global mining challenges.

Warmly,

-Mo.
 
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Mohammad Dehghani, PhD
Chancellor
mo@mst.edu | 573-341-4116

206 Parker Hall, 300 West 13th Street, Rolla, MO 65409-0910
chancellor.mst.edu