Drone Technology in Mining: Sphere Drones’ HubX
Sphere Drones, a key player in the drone industry, has introduced a self-sustaining mobile drone platform, HubX. This platform enables businesses to collect aerial data across various terrains and remote areas.
HubX: A New Addition to Drone Technology
HubX is an all-terrain, solar-powered, and internet-enabled mobile drone platform. It can be operational within 30 minutes, allowing businesses to capture and deliver aerial data back to the office with a single click. This platform aims to simplify Drone-in-a-Box (DiaB) deployment for mine sites, farms, utilities, and emergency services. It also includes built-in redundancies to ensure continuous operation in remote areas and during network failures.
Paris Cockinos, CEO of Sphere Drones, stated, “HubX has been developed entirely at Sphere Drones’ Sydney headquarters for use by miners and utilities to streamline the most time-consuming surveying tasks, savings them thousands of hours and millions of dollars in the process.”
The Role of Drones in Mining
Adrian Wall, Survey Superintendent and Chief Remote Pilot at Yancoal’s Mt Thorley Warkworth site, sees the potential of HubX to streamline surveyors’ workloads, reduce their time in the field, and increase data collection frequency through the automation of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) operations. He added, “HubX includes everything you need to roll out a BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight) operation, it’s innovative, turnkey and portable which can help businesses like ours meet their daily operational requirements.”
The Economic Impact of Drones
According to a company announcement, Sphere Drones has assisted more than 11,000 clients, including 3,000 corporates, with drone-related services. A recent Federal Government study estimated that expanding drone use could save Australian businesses up to $10 billion over the next 20 years. The mining sector, along with agriculture, forestry, construction, and fisheries industries, is expected to benefit the most from these cost savings. The study also noted an increase in drone operation training and licensing in Australia, with close to 10,000 drones currently operating commercially.
Mr. Cockinos concluded, “Sphere Drones provides the game-changing benefits of drone technology to save costs and provide more efficiencies to miners and other organisations.”
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