A real-time analysis of post-blast rock fragmentation using UAV technology

Abstract

The current practice of collecting rock fragmentation data for image analysis is highly manual and provides data with low temporal and spatial resolution. Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for collecting images of rock fragments improves the quality of the image data and automates the data collection process. This work presents the results of laboratory-scale rock fragment measurements using a UAV. The goal is to highlight the benefits of aerial fragmentation analysis in terms of both prediction accuracy and time effort. The pile was manually photographed and the results of the manual method were compared to the UAV method.

Keywords:

• Drone
• unmanned aerial vehicle
• real-time analysis
• rock fragmentation analysis
• blasting

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Split-Engineering for their generous support of this project.