Mining is an ideal application for fractal robots. Mining by its very nature is a fractal operation whether its open cast or deep pit. An ore seam is three dimensional fractal structure which requires a fractal machine to follow it. Unfortunately a lot of mining takes place as in figure 1 where a large amount of material has to be moved using huge dumper trucks.
Fractal robots can avoid unnecessary removal of material.
Very often expensive ores are contained in narrow seams only inches thick. These seams cannot be mined efficiently as room has to be made for the machines and the operator to work. A fractal robot consisting of simple cubes on the other hand can use smaller robotic cubes to follow the narrower seams with smaller mining tools. Figure 2 Smaller cutters measuring less than 3 inches allow the robot to go inside the material cutting out slots. The slot can be any three dimensional path.