How Augmented Reality is Revolutionizing the Mining Industry
By: Linda Malecaj
Tags: Smart Glasses, Mining, Industry, Augmented Reality, Remote Assistance

Mining Industry consists of the discovery, valuation, exploitation, processing, and marketing of useful minerals, such as coal, iron, or precious metals. This industry locates minerals and removes them in the most economical and efficient way possible for use by various industries. As it happens often in any sector, the mining industry is also facing major challenges that have a big impact on the entire operating process. To overcome difficulties, businesses in this field are always looking for ways to address these challenges and ensure a competitive position in the international market arena.

Augmented Reality is quickly becoming one of the must-have technologies for the mining industry and already many enterprises are already using it to improve productivity and work safety. This technology enables remote distance support that provides headquarter experts with the ability to visually guide and collaborate with site operators. Site operators are able to remotely solve unexpected issues by bridging the physical and virtual worlds.

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Optimization of the mining process by reducing costs, improving efficiencies, increasing productivity, and enhancing safety are just some of the many benefits that this technology offers. Moreover, what is most important is that remote assistance can be easily incorporated into current work environments by maximizing employee engagement and minimizing the costs of implementing new tools.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the Augmented Reality applications in the mining environment.

Critical Inspection

Since mining is a very delicate industry, the effectiveness of processes for inspecting various problems that may arise and possible defects is critical in all subsequent processes. Remote Assistance makes it possible for remote experts to virtually inspect all machinery as well as the surrounding environment. All this inspection is made possible by Augmented Reality, which integrated into smart glasses through the zoom-in/out feature shows every detail including dangerous areas without endangering the site operators.

Maintenance and Repair

The use of AR Remote Assistance ensures the maintenance and repair of machines in the most efficient way possible. In the event of a breakdown of any machine, all the information necessary for its repair is served directly to the site technicians. Through detailed information and enriched with pictures or pdf files, site technicians can follow step by step the process of how to fix a certain part. All this is done in a simple and fast way since the use of smart glasses enables hand-free performance.

Drilling Applications

Visual guide assistance through AR makes it possible to significantly increase the accuracy and efficiency of drilling. When applying AR to aid drilling practices, it allows the transmission of necessary information by remote experts. Drilling operators also have a wider field of information by improving the accuracy of their work during this difficult process. Increasing accuracy during this process enables the reduction of potential damages and the avoidance of various risks.

Real-time Operator Assistance

Mining operations are usually quite difficult due to different environmental or climatic conditions. AR visual aid makes it possible for experts to warn site operators of potential dangers that threaten them. This real-time information improves collaboration and significantly increases response time. Workers are less exposed to various risks and are more engaged in their tasks, thus increasing the productivity of their work.

Site Operators Training

The mining industry has the highest mortality rate at work among all industries. Given the riskiness of this sector, the workforce must be highly experienced and have sufficient knowledge. Through the use of AR, even inexperienced workers can know exactly what steps to follow in each situation, which will allow them to perform virtual moves before their eyes and gain the necessary knowledge for later situations. This will help improve workforce quality but also reduce the high costs of training by enabling workers with more skills, knowledge, and confidence to do their job.

In addition to what we mentioned above, there are many other applications of Augmented Reality in this sector. To start with improved maintenance through virtual instructions, enhanced collaboration to better engagement and training of employees by knowledge sharing beyond borders. As a tool that provides AR Remote Assistance, VSight Remote goes further to provide real-time guidance and assistance during critical situations. The utilization of VSight Remote conducts greater efficiency on maintenance, repair tasks of equipment, and on the entire systems of the mining industry. VSight as a provider of effective solutions for the unskilled workforce and showing real benefits can be considered as a catalyzation to many enterprises that are still skeptical about Augmented Reality. Now is the time for the leaders of these enterprises operating in this field to start exploring the adoption of this technology quite beneficial and having the real results that every business aims for.

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