Mine sur­vey­ing equip­ment and tools

Mine sur­vey­ing equip­ment and tools play an essen­tial role in mod­ern geo­log­i­cal and mine sur­vey­ing work. These tech­nolo­gies and devices allow for pre­cise mea­sure­ments, the cre­ation of mine sur­vey­ing net­works, the acqui­si­tion of geo­det­ic data, and cal­cu­la­tions of min­er­al vol­umes.

Theodolites and levels

One of the most com­mon clas­si­cal instru­ments in geo­desy and mine sur­vey­ing is the theodo­lite. A theodo­lite is a mine sur­vey­ing device that con­sists of an opti­cal tele­scope with a crosshair and ver­ti­cal and hor­i­zon­tal cir­cles. By using a theodo­lite, a sur­vey­or can mea­sure hor­i­zon­tal and ver­ti­cal angles between points in the ter­rain, enabling the estab­lish­ment of points on the ground with high accu­ra­cy.

Oth­er impor­tant sur­vey­ing instru­ment is a lev­el. A lev­el is a mine sur­vey­ing equip­ment used to mea­sure the height dif­fer­ences between dif­fer­ent points on the ter­rain. With this instru­ment, a sur­vey­or can estab­lish an accu­rate lev­el of ele­va­tion, which is nec­es­sary for the design of build­ings, water­falls, tun­nels, and oth­er struc­tures.

In addi­tion, sur­vey­ing equip­ment includes devices such as dis­tance meters, spring lev­els, tilt sen­sors, and oth­ers. All these instru­ments assist sur­vey­ors in col­lect­ing, ana­lyz­ing, and inter­pret­ing infor­ma­tion, which is a cru­cial step in the work of any min­ing pro­fes­sion­al.

Total stations

A total sta­tion is a sur­vey­ing instru­ment that com­bines the func­tions of a theodo­lite and a dis­tance meter. The main advan­tage of total sta­tions is their abil­i­ty to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly mea­sure angles and dis­tances to objects, sig­nif­i­cant­ly speed­ing up the process of sur­vey­ing mea­sure­ments. These devices are typ­i­cal­ly equipped with laser dis­tance meters and can mea­sure dis­tances to objects by reflect­ing a laser beam.

Total sta­tions can be opti­cal or elec­tron­ic. Opti­cal total sta­tions are used for direct mea­sure­ments through an eye­piece, while elec­tron­ic total sta­tions have dig­i­tal dis­plays that show the mea­sured val­ues. Elec­tron­ic total sta­tions can also be con­nect­ed to com­put­ers or tablets for direct data trans­mis­sion and auto­mat­ic input into soft­ware.

Using total sta­tions, sur­vey­ors can deter­mine the coor­di­nates of points, mea­sure hor­i­zon­tal and ver­ti­cal angles, dis­tances, and heights in real-time, mak­ing them indis­pens­able for pre­cise and effi­cient sur­vey­ing tasks such as cre­at­ing topo­graph­ic maps, estab­lish­ing con­trol points, mea­sur­ing ter­rain pro­files, and more. This data is used for cal­cu­lat­ing min­er­al vol­umes, cre­at­ing topo­graph­ic plans, cal­cu­lat­ing dis­place­ments and defor­ma­tions, as well as con­struct­ing a planned sur­vey­ing ref­er­ence net­work in accor­dance with (GKNTA‑2.04–02-98) and the Order of Con­struc­tion of the State Geo­det­ic Net­work, approved by the Res­o­lu­tion of the Cab­i­net of Min­is­ters of Ukraine on August 7, 2013, No. 646.

Addi­tion­al­ly, mod­ern total sta­tions can have addi­tion­al fea­tures that facil­i­tate the work of sur­vey­ors. For exam­ple, some mod­els can auto­mat­i­cal­ly detect and track tar­gets, sim­pli­fy­ing the mea­sure­ment process and ensur­ing greater accu­ra­cy of results. Some total sta­tions can also be used in com­bi­na­tion with GPS receivers to obtain even more pre­cise results.

Drones

The use of drones as sur­vey­ing equip­ment is becom­ing increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar and is sig­nif­i­cant­ly chang­ing the ways data is col­lect­ed in min­ing oper­a­tions. Drones equipped with high-qual­i­ty cam­eras and sen­sors pro­vide sur­vey­ors with a sig­nif­i­cant advan­tage, allow­ing them to quick­ly gath­er detailed infor­ma­tion and cre­ate accu­rate map­ping mod­els. Instead of tra­di­tion­al man­u­al mea­sure­ments, sur­vey­ors can use drones for auto­mat­ic ter­rain scan­ning. This takes less time and effort, increas­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and reduc­ing costs.

Drones can reach inac­ces­si­ble or haz­ardous areas, pro­vid­ing sur­vey­ors with the abil­i­ty to explore chal­leng­ing moun­tain­ous ter­rains or oth­er hard-to-reach loca­tions. They can pro­vide detailed infor­ma­tion about geo­log­i­cal struc­tures, sur­face slopes, and oth­er impor­tant para­me­ters with­out expos­ing sur­vey­ors to risks asso­ci­at­ed with work­ing in dan­ger­ous places. An addi­tion­al advan­tage of using drones is the real-time trans­mis­sion of col­lect­ed data to the com­mand cen­ter. This allows sur­vey­ors to quick­ly ana­lyze infor­ma­tion and make time­ly deci­sions. The use of drones in sur­vey­ing helps reduce the time and effort spent on data col­lec­tion and pro­cess­ing, enhanc­ing work effi­cien­cy.

Fur­ther­more, drones can replace sur­vey­ing equip­ment used for peri­od­ic mon­i­tor­ing of land sur­face con­di­tions. They can eas­i­ly repli­cate field sur­veys, pro­vid­ing accu­rate data on changes that have occurred over a spe­cif­ic peri­od of time. This enables sur­vey­ors to detect ground dis­place­ments, defor­ma­tions, and oth­er changes that may impact safe­ty in min­ing sites. With high-qual­i­ty cam­eras, drones can cap­ture detailed sur­face images, cre­at­ing three-dimen­sion­al mod­els that assist sur­vey­ors in mine devel­op­ment plan­ning, iden­ti­fy­ing poten­tial risks, and improv­ing extrac­tion process­es.

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)

With the devel­op­ment of mod­ern geo­det­ic tech­nolo­gies, new sur­vey­ing equip­ment has emerged, such as Glob­al Nav­i­ga­tion Satel­lite Sys­tems (GNSS). GNSS devices, such as GPS (Glob­al Posi­tion­ing Sys­tem), GLONASS (Glob­al Nav­i­ga­tion Satel­lite Sys­tem), or Galileo, uti­lize satel­lite sig­nals to deter­mine the pre­cise loca­tion of points on the Earth­’s sur­face. They enable sur­vey­ors to obtain coor­di­nates of points with high accu­ra­cy and speed, sim­pli­fy­ing the mea­sure­ment process and facil­i­tat­ing more effi­cient work over large areas.

GPS is the most wide­ly used and well-known GNSS tech­nol­o­gy. GPS devices have built-in receivers that receive sig­nals from GPS satel­lites and process them to deter­mine geo­graph­ic coor­di­nates — lat­i­tude, lon­gi­tude, and alti­tude. To obtain accu­rate results, GPS receivers need to have suf­fi­cient vis­i­bil­i­ty of a cer­tain num­ber of satel­lites, typ­i­cal­ly a min­i­mum of 4, to per­form tri­lat­er­a­tion and deter­mine the pre­cise loca­tion.

One of the advan­tages of GPS is its glob­al cov­er­age. Since GPS satel­lites are posi­tioned at high alti­tudes and orbit around the Earth, receivers can receive sig­nals prac­ti­cal­ly any­where on the plan­et. GPS allows for the estab­lish­ment of large-scale sur­vey­ing net­works and can be used to deter­mine para­me­ters of the Earth­’s sur­face, mea­sure angu­lar and lin­ear quan­ti­ties, ana­lyze defor­ma­tions, and study geo­log­i­cal phe­nom­e­na.

Software

Mod­ern sur­vey­ing equip­ment also includes spe­cial­ized soft­ware pack­ages for pro­cess­ing and ana­lyz­ing geo­det­ic data. These pro­grams enable cal­cu­la­tions of coor­di­nates, con­struc­tion of dig­i­tal ter­rain mod­els, cre­ation and analy­sis of geo­det­ic net­works, and much more. They stream­line the work of sur­vey­ors by pro­vid­ing fast and accu­rate pro­cess­ing of large vol­umes of geo­det­ic data.

One key area of devel­op­ment is the tran­si­tion to wire­less tech­nolo­gies, which ensure con­tin­u­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion between sur­vey­ing instru­ments and com­put­ers. This allows sur­vey­ors to work more mobile and effi­cient­ly over dif­fer­ent dis­tances, while also sim­pli­fy­ing the data col­lec­tion and pro­cess­ing process.

Cur­rent­ly, the func­tions that can be trans­lat­ed into soft­ware in sur­vey­ing include:
Mea­sure­ment of ter­rain pro­files, object posi­tion­ing, cre­ation of accu­rate maps, etc.
Cre­ation of geo­det­ic maps, includ­ing 2D and 3D mod­els.
Per­form­ing var­i­ous analy­ses and mea­sure­ments, such as dis­tance deter­mi­na­tion, area cal­cu­la­tions, height mea­sure­ments, and oth­er geo­det­ic para­me­ters.
Inte­gra­tion with oth­er sys­tems, such as nav­i­ga­tion sys­tems or account­ing sys­tems, enabling process automa­tion.

Over­all, mod­ern sur­vey­ing equip­ment allows for mea­sure­ments with high speed, accu­ra­cy, and effi­cien­cy, which is cru­cial for resource exploita­tion, design, con­struc­tion, land man­age­ment, and oth­er fields. Mod­ern sur­vey­ing equip­ment and tools are becom­ing more com­pact and portable. For exam­ple, mod­ern elec­tron­ic theodo­lites have small sizes and light­weight, mak­ing them eas­i­er to trans­port and use on-site. This allows sur­vey­ors to be more mobile and reduces the time required for mea­sure­ments.