Safe, Intelligent, Efficient! 51WORLD’s Digital Twin Technology Comprehensively Empowers Intelligent Construction in Mines.
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When it comes to mining, many people’s impressions are “harsh natural environment, difficult working conditions, and low production efficiency.” However, with the widespread and in-depth adoption of digital technologies such as digital twins, the metallurgical and mining industry is gradually shedding its old labels and moving steadily towards the direction of “green, safe, intelligent, and efficient.”
Digital mining is an essential component of the national strategic resource security system.
Moreover, as the mining industry, a traditional sector, experiences a significant decrease in resource security and an increase in mining depth, it is facing increasingly fierce market competition. The imperative for digitalization and intelligent transformation is imminent.
The Four Major “Roadblocks,” Thwarting Mining Enterprises
The four major challenges faced by the metallurgical and mining industry in the process of transformation are:
1. Lack of top-level design in companies.
2. Low automation level and talent shortage in specialized equipment systems.
3. Low integration of information systems and prominent issues with information silos.
4. Lack of innovation in management models and cognitive gaps.
Unlike other industries, the metallurgical and mining industry is a heavy industry with intensive human-machine interactions and a complex production environment. While emphasizing informatization, it also sets high requirements for the mine’s “green, safe, harmonious, intelligent, and efficient” aspects.
So, how can digital technology be effectively utilized to empower the intelligent upgrading of mining operations?
Targeted Solutions
Empowering the Transformation of Mines
51WORLD is dedicated to using new technologies like digital twins to drive the intelligent upgrading of mines. Actively constructing a “green, efficient, intelligent, and safe” smart mining system, the company has accumulated profound experience in geological exploration, planning and design, mining & blasting, ore processing, ore transportation, and other fields.
Now, let’s take a look at what changes digital twin technology will bring to mining.
1. Transformation layout planning, all in one diagram.
China’s mining industry is still in the early stages of digital transformation, lagging behind industries such as water conservancy, transportation, and electricity in terms of overall layout, standard formulation, technical capabilities, and industrial policies. Many mining enterprises often find it challenging to know where to start in this transformation.
Digital twin technology, as a carrier for core technologies like cloud computing, XR, big data, IoT, and 5G, can play a crucial role by seamlessly integrating business applications with various technologies.
For instance, in typical open-pit mines and underground mines, 51WORLD can restore five major segmented application scenarios, including mining areas, processing areas, corridor areas, storage areas, and transportation areas. These are integrated with mining business systems to establish a digitized mining management platform that ensures process connectivity, business integration, and multi-dimensional intelligent control, including scene monitoring.
This management platform can establish a comprehensive smart mining top-level architecture and creating a transformation blueprint. It assists mining enterprises in accelerating the construction of informatization, digitization, and intelligence with a systematic and systemic mindset and perspective, starting from the top-level design.
2. Improving equipment efficiency to accelerate the unmannedization of mines.
Currently, in China, the automation level of mining equipment, especially core equipment, is low. The construction of information systems is generally relatively backward, and there is a severe loss of specialized talent. Additionally, the lack of overall planning in early construction results in a single functionality of systems, lack of data interoperability between systems, and low comprehensive utilization of business.
51WORLD, based on key business scenarios in the digital transformation of mines, achieves real-time monitoring of equipment, remote guidance for personnel, early fault localization, and composite management of multiple systems. This maximizes the application efficiency of core equipment, accelerating the push towards unmanned mining.
For example, the 51WORLD unmanned mining truck digital twin platform, with digital twinning at its core and data integration as its foundation, helps clients establish a three-dimensional, visualized production command and dispatch platform, along with a safety monitoring and equipment support platform.
This allows mining enterprises to track production and equipment status in real-time, not only enhancing equipment efficiency but also creating a less manpower-intensive or unmanned operational environment for the mining industry.
3. Organic integration of multiple businesses, breaking down data barriers.
Traditional mining information systems are deployed in a chimney-like fashion, and there are barriers to cross-organizational collaboration. On the one hand, due to historical reasons, most mining IT constructions lack unified management. Faced with diverse demands and varying development timelines, multiple systems often run in parallel. On the other hand, the mining sector involves complex and variable information content such as geological hydrology, mining design and production, and mine environmental monitoring. The data between systems are independent, creating a natural isolation at the application level.
Organic Fusion of Multi-business Modules:
Leveraging the core product, digital twin-based application WDP, 51WORLD achieves the organic fusion of multi-business modules, connecting data from various business systems. This truly realizes the circulation of data from mining to transportation and efficient utilization of dormant data.
- Collaborative Management:
In the development mode, business development is transformed into a simple “drag, pull, and drop” interactive form, meeting the collaborative development needs of various business modules.
- Multi-source Data Fusion:
In addition to collaborative management, many users face challenges in data source fusion. WDP provides data fusion capabilities, supporting various data sources such as physical entities, virtual models, artificial modeling, on-site surveys, AI reconstruction, and more.
Simultaneously, WDP also supports on-premises users to load new data formats like 3D tiles onto oblique photography content through data services. This feature is particularly prominent in updating twin scenes for mining geological scenarios.
• Simulation and Deduction
WDP’s applications in the mining sector go beyond visualization. Based on simulation data, WDP can also conduct simulation deductions such as slope monitoring, electronic fences, microseismic simulation, stress changes, and more. These simulations are provided to customers in the form of plugins, meeting diverse needs in the mining sector.
Digital Assets
In addition, traditional mining enterprise resource management systems face challenges such as “inaccurate” resource and asset estimation and “inefficient” information exchange. Digital assets are the future core value of enterprises. 51WORLD integrates systems used throughout the entire process of mining resource management, including production exploration, geological delineation, mining design, planning management, engineering implementation, quality acceptance, and more. Through digital modeling of production exploration results, geological delineation data, mining design parameters, mining data, resource clearance in mining areas, and verification reports on resource reserves, it forms unique digital assets for mines. This helps mining enterprises build a data asset management platform, facilitating resource inventory and utilization in various aspects like equipment and personnel.
4. Innovative upgrading of management models
The level of management in a mine is crucial for the overall development and future of the entire enterprise. For a long time, mining enterprises’ production management has been extensive for two main reasons:
1. The mining process is characterized by complexity, variability, difficulty, and high risk.
2. The adoption of advanced mining technologies and information technology applications has lagged compared to other industries.
51WORLD focuses on constructing digital resources by collecting data generated at various stages. It binds business data between systems and the mining production process, effectively revitalizing a significant amount of data held by mining enterprises’ users and forming usable data resources.
“From a small pebble to an entire mine,” corresponding avatars can be found in the digital world. These digital avatars not only synchronize perceptions of the real world and provide real-time feedback for virtual world decision planning but also reverse-guide the real world. This process propels mines to achieve fine-grained management in various stages such as approval, exploration, planning, extraction, transportation, detection, processing, and transportation.
For example:
- Planning Phase: Visualization of mining operations enables engineers to conduct optimal mining design and efficiently utilize resources.
- Extraction Phase: Real-time monitoring of operational quality and progress, automatic timely alerts for abnormal conditions, providing robust safety assurance.
- Transportation and Detection Phase: Remote monitoring and diagnosis of equipment through the digital twin platform ensure the safety of the production process.
- Processing Phase: Digitizing the entire material flow and processing process allows for precise control and optimization of the production process, thereby improving processing efficiency and product quality.
- Transportation Phase: Comprehensive perception and real-time monitoring of vehicles, roads, etc., understanding loading progress, optimizing the smooth transportation process, and enhancing transportation efficiency.
What’s Else?
In the mining emergency field, facing multiple risks and high-complexity mining emergency scenarios, 51WORLD utilizes the emergency simulation and deduction editor to conduct disaster simulation, human flow pre-rehearsals, and assist mining personnel in planning emergency escape routes, conducting emergency simulation training, and enhancing the emergency response and judgment capabilities in case of accidents, thereby strengthening the safety of mining operations.
In summary, the 51WORLD digital mining solution is dedicated to deeply integrating digital technologies such as digital twins with mining operations. It comprehensively empowers the entire industry chain, covering “acquisition approval, geological exploration, planning and design, extraction & blasting, loading & transportation, quality inspection, ore processing, and ore transportation.” It provides new ideas and solutions for the digital and intelligent transformation of the mining industry.
This includes fully digitizing production materials in the upstream to enhance production efficiency at the source; in the midstream, digitally and intelligently transforming key processes such as exploration, planning, extraction, testing, and processing, innovating production operation modes; and in the downstream, establishing a smart supply chain to efficiently coordinate logistics, transportation, and market supply and demand.
In the next steps, 51WORLD will continue to deepen cooperation with mining enterprises, create benchmark cases, and ultimately promote safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly mining production, maximizing economic benefits.
