Making Mines Safer Sooner
September 1, 2021
CoreSafety TV Anchor - Nelson Duffle
In June of 2021, a team of professors and students were recognized by CoreSafety TV for their work on a spherical encased drone aimed at making the monitoring of coal mines safer and more efficient. CoreSafety is an “industry-wide partnership built on a foundation of leadership, culture, and health and safety systems” (CoreSafety Homepage). In the episode titled “Developing Safer Drones for Coal Mines,” NMT Roghanchi were interviewed. They spoke of their work on bringing the concept of this drone from an idea to a reality.
This project is a collaboration between the Mechanical and Mineral Engineering Departments. The idea started as a project for the Junior and Senior Design Clinic students where their objective was to create a spherical drone. Currently, the created drone is not permissible inside mines according to MSHA standards (Mining Safety and Health Administration). For the drone to be permissible, “it needs to be intrinsically safe or explosion-proof” (Pedram Roghanchi). The drone still has a bit more design and testing to go through before meeting these requirements.
To make the drone permissible, the drone needs to have measures added that will make sure that the drone doesn’t set off any methane explosions or anything of the source. Unfortunately, these measures usually mean adding extra protection, which adds excess weight to the system as a whole. With too much weight, the drone is not able to safely do its job. So the main obstacle for NMT’s team right now is finding the balance between permissibility measures and the system’s weight as a whole.
CoreSafety mentions that Roghanchi and Hassanalian are the best team for this job. With Roghanchi’s primary career focus being on health and safety in Mineral Engineering and Hassanalian’s 15 years of drone research under his belt, it appears that CoreSafety is right. These two and their team recently was awarded a three-year $600,000 grant to study the different solutions to getting this drone permissible and in the mines. If you would like to hear more about the team and their drone, visit the CoreSafety June 2021 Issue.
However, if you like the idea of designing and working with drones, you are in for a big treat. This project is one of many drone research projects that New Mexico Tech is working on. There are positions open for all levels of students in regards to drones and drone automation. If you are interested in working with drones during your time at New Mexico Tech, feel free to get in contact with Mostafa Hassanalian (mostafa.hassanalian@nmt.edu) and Pedram Roghanchi (pedram.roghanchi@nmt.edu).
You can see the video here: