Experts in Lidar Technology
Light Distance and Ranging (LiDAR) technology is being used to transform measurement in the Australian mining and resources sector.
Around since the 1970s, Airborne LiDAR has evolved to become one of the most efficient, reliable and accurate means of mapping the shape of landscapes and features. Similar to how Radar uses radio and Sonar uses sound, LiDAR uses laser technology to accurately measure distances.
An Australian company uses a potent combination of LiDAR & imagery collected with a fleet of fixed-wing aircraft, intuitive cloud processing platforms and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to produce a wide range of mapping and geographic information solutions.
Processing teams with a diverse and wellhoned range of skills process massive data volumes at almost unfathomable speeds.
Alex Rixon is the LiDAR Product Manager at Aerometrex, a company at the forefront of Australian – and, indeed, international – Airborne LiDAR surveying and 3D modelling. What sets this organisation apart is not just the way it is using LiDAR and deploying it for a range of applications, but that it is integrating this technology with AI and cloudbased processing to make the data more accessible, usable, and understandable to those who need it.
That includes the mining sector.
Aerometrex LiDAR fleet is made up of four Vulcanair P68C aeroplanes. Each aircraft is fitted with a survey aperture and the latest in
LiDAR and digital photographic technology. In operation, onboard is a pilot as well as a sensor operator who work together to capture required LiDAR and imagery data.
The laser beam emitted from the aircraft starts off smaller than the diameter of a pencil and diverges in a conical shape to the size of a small dinner plate upon reaching objects on the ground.
The LiDAR sensors onboard can emit up to two million points every second!
If that's not impressive enough, each laser pulse can take up to 15 individual measurements through tree canopies to measure the ground underneath!
The laser pulses are resolved as a dense three-dimensional point cloud. Depending on survey needs, this point cloud can be as sparse as 1 to 2 points per square metre or up to densities of more than 200 points per square metre!
Datasets with this high level of fidelity, quality, and accuracy have a wide range of uses in not only mining applications, but many others such as forestry management, and urban planning.
With each aircraft covering up to 150km² of LiDAR survey on a typical day, Aerometrex can capture data and create three-dimensional visual models which detail ground terrain, mine site features, vegetation, infrastructure, etc. Even powerlines and fences in overgrown bushland can be identified.
This level of precision allows for accurate
surveying and analysis in the mining context. With haul roads, safety bunds, windrows and stockpile volumes all able to be accurately appraised and then analysed, mine operators, can access data, which is important in activities such as improving safety, assessing regulatory compliance, planning blasting, productivity reporting and monitoring environmental management and rehabilitation.
With LiDAR datasets, roads within a mine site can be accurately measured to determine the width of the road, the width of each carriageway and the distance between vehicles to ensure minimum requirements were met, while safety bunds can be assessed for compliance to height, width and slope requirements for that site.
Mr Rixon said LiDAR's capabilities were set to further enhance offerings to the mining sector through value-added reporting and data products, all made more efficient by the application of AI and cloud-based platforms. Challenges like transporting data from remote locations to processing offices are being overcome by the use of highspeed cellular broadband technology with data available for processing in the cloud within just hours of being flown.
"The remoteness of a survey location is no longer as great a factor; we can have data uploaded from the field to the cloud and made available to clients very quickly. This is really important for mining clients,” Mr Rixon said.
Through the powerful combination of intelligent algorithms and scalable cloudbased computing, three-dimensional
modelling information can be available with extremely fast turnaround timeframes.
"What once took the LiDAR industry weeks to do, Aerometrex can do in just a matter of hours," Mr Rixon said.
LiDAR, being based on emitted laser pulses is also effective at night!
This means data can be collected in locations that may be inaccessible during the daytime. Poor weather, blasting timeframes or difficult airspace can be managed around by capturing data at night.
“If we have a clear window of a couple of hours, we can get up there and do what we need to. We don't need daylight,” Mr Lidar said.
While fast data turnaround is critical in productivity, safety compliance and incident management, the data can also be used for bigger picture applications.
Multiple overlapping surveys can be combined into one large dataset. This makes mapping exceptionally large areas incredibly efficient to capture compared to other survey technologies.
Mr Rixon said that the more than 95,000 square kilometres of LiDAR collected last year is a measure of Aerometrex’s impact on this market.
“Our aircraft do not stop – they fly the length and breadth of the country continuously capturing image and LiDAR data for mining, bush fire management, local government, major projects and private
enterprise,” he said.
Aerometrex has more than 40 years of experience, and Mr Rixon has been working with LiDAR technology for more than 20 years - they have seen mapping technology continually evolve to where it is today and believe that the company is well-positioned to lead this industry into the future.
The other aircraft in the Aerometrex fleet are also kept busy, with another Vulcanair P68C, three Cessna 404 Titans, and a Cessna 421 – all of which are used for aerial imagery and can be used for LiDAR as needed.
Since the business started in 1980, Aerometrex has covered more than 3.9m square kms and completed more than 5300 projects – and they have pictures to prove it!
Now, Aerometrex has two offices in Australia – in Adelaide and on the Sunshine Coast – as well as an office in Denver, USA.
As for the future?
Aerometrex applies a combination of technologies to capture detailed data and derive vital decision-making information.
The company has been working towards hosting their diverse datasets on their webbased platform, MetroMap – from LiDAR to 3D mesh models and aerial imagery. This is another key spoke in the Aerometrex wheel - MetroMap is what brings everything together and disseminates it giving customers access to a full suite of spatial data.
Aerometrex is doing some ground-breaking work identifying features such as cars or people, and other elements to be removed from imagery by AI programs to improve the realism of modelling data.
"I think what we are doing, we are doing better than everyone else," Mr Rixon said. "We put a lot of work into our research and development and it has represented quite a lot of value for us.”
Federated datasets created from LiDAR, 3D modelling and high-resolution imagery are closing the gap between the virtual and the real world.
Ultra-realistic virtual environments can be used for decision-making in the same technology being used by game developers
to enable as real and visually appealing an experience as possible for their users. Mr Rixon reckons it is just as much fun to play with data as with video games these days.
"A lot is happening in the space of environmental planning, virtual tourism and even events such as Formula E," he said.
Therein lies the future for Aerometrex. And who would have thought the words gaming, mining, and Formula E virtual racing would be used together in the same story – much less the same sentence.
But that is what the future looks like. And it is in Super High Resolution.