BHP Mitsubishi rolls out autonomous drones

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:01]As far as [music] drone in the box and the technology that's behind me here today, it's game-changing. No longer do we have to send our people into the pit to launch drones. [music] Using an app, we can communicate direct with the remote pilot, request a flight.

[00:00:14]The drone will launch out of the box behind me and collect images as we need them, wherever we need them.

[00:00:21]The value that this technology delivers is outstanding. So, from a cost, from a productivity, and [music] most importantly a safety perspective, it's huge.

[00:00:33]Mining so dynamic and changes every minute of every day, we need up-to-date information almost real time.

[00:00:40]The drone in the box technology is an enabler for that, sort of the backbone around providing that real-time data and real-time information where we can get better insight to our people.

[00:00:50]Historically, we've focused on supporting production through surveying, putting pegs and guidance in the field, providing GPS network. The world's changing with drone in the box, through the automation piece, through the remote operating center, there's less of that work. Now, frees us up to do some more value-add [music] stuff on site. So, over our four BMA sites, we have eight pads, 16 drones. I guess very limited infrastructure, a bit of a gravel pad, some temporary fencing, and some power. That provides us over 80 km worth of range and pretty much continuous flying time. So, it's a massive enabler for us going forward.

[00:01:29]We are using drone in a box in a lot of different [music] ways in our work. We are using our geospatial information for real-time feedback into [music] what conditions we've got out in the pit, um any kind of challenges or safety issues that we may need to address straight away. It's a big site. It's about 16 k's long and it takes a long time to drive around. Previously, we were spending a lot of time driving and trying to prioritize those areas that we really feel needed attention. What we've been able to achieve with drone in a Box [music] is we can actually check all of that information before we head out and really target how we use our time.

[00:02:04]In terms of achieving our overall outcomes from a safety perspective, things like real-time photos and being able to identify any kind of safety issue purely from drones on our computers is brilliant. [music] Every time that we would previously be pulling up, say, an ArcGIS software that gets [music] updated weekly, we're now using Drone in a Box instead.

[00:02:25]The thing that surprised me most about implementing this kind of technology is how much time it saved.

[00:02:34]What Drone in a Box is going to do is bring another dimension into how we can run the operation here at Caval Ridge.

[00:02:40]Started with the surveyors, then being able to get the spatial information [music] that they need rapidly. So, then production, production being able to take daily photos and to be able to understand exactly what's happening out in the field without driving around.

[00:02:54]Then if we look at it from an emergency response team, the imagery, the data that can be provided, whether it's hot tires through [music] thermal imagery, right through to live feeds to myself and the ERT team.

[00:03:07]My guys get excited by this [music] sort of technology. The X Box for us are used for various applications. It starts as an inspection tool for the production supervisors. So, instead of having people driving around the pits, geotechnical inspections, [music] in-pit coal mining inspections, it ranges then also to a survey application where we use it for daily survey. So, coal surveys, high wall mapping surveys, water level surveys. The data that we get from Rocket DNA is already in a format that we can integrate it directly with our downstream workflows.

[00:03:35]The difference is now we can do it [music] remotely, we can do it safer, and we can do it quicker.

[00:03:41]We've got over 60 km operating strike between Saraji [music] and Saraji South.

[00:03:46]There's no need to mount up a a party to go and fly a drone in a location that's remote, to photos, come back, process the imagery, and then, you know, half an hour to an hour later you've got images.

[00:03:56]With Drone in a Box, you can launch it, 2 minutes later you've got the flight going, 20 minutes later you've got the imagery, and away you go.

[00:04:03]It is an exciting time to be in the spatial space. Everything evolving with AI, to actually leverage that to its fully, we need really good base data, and Drone in a Box is the number one enabler for us to get that.

[00:04:16]The more we mature this technology, the more people actually start to get hands-on and embed this into [music] our routines, the more I think people start to think about all the other opportunities that this presents and value cases that it opens up for us as a business.

[00:04:28]The list of use cases for this, it's tip of the iceberg.