Guanajuato, Gto., December 25, 2017.- With the interest to contribute to improve the safety and hygiene conditions in the mines, Dr. Joel Everardo Valtierra Olivares, a researcher of the University of Guanajuato (UG), works in a project to use drones to collect data about ventilation and the contamination in mines, avoiding exposure of the workers.

Dr. Valtierra explained that the ventilation in the underground mines is very important, "to keep the oxygen concentration in a range of 18 to 21 percent of the volume is elemental". However, the parameters continuously change because of the equipment and diesel machinery, load-carry-discharge vehicles, hoppers, etc.

"The worker who enter must be protected with a mask, but there are places where it is very complicated to have quality oxygen, specially if equipment that produces monoxide are approaching. So, they can be 5, 10, 20 minutes or an hour with high levels of monoxide. The idea of this is to optimize the ventilation", using drones to monitor the gas concentration in the mine.

By regulation, the venting system in the mine must be evaluated once a year minimum. The intention of the project is to have more continuous readings since throughout the year, the weather conditions change, and the progress of the mine also changes. The purpose then is to have recent data faster, and protecting the safety and hygiene personnel who work in the mines.

The professor ascribed to the Department of Engineering in Mines, Metallurgy and Geology of Campus Guanajuato, mentions that in other countries, they are using drones in open sky mines to inspect progress. "The idea here is the application, to reduce the risk for the supervisor or personnel by taking the reading of the contamination without knowing if the monoxide diluted, for example. The idea is to send the drone, let it analyze that information, come out and give a reading, and so, we can guarantee the safety of the workers."

He explained that normally, the drone is use outside with a GPS, but since it is underground, this system doesn't have coverage inside the mine, "so, we need to research how to position the drone inside the mine, a proposal is to use a numeric pad to move the drone inside the mine without the reference of the GPS."

The proposal of the academic is to adapt a commercial drone, so it can enter the mines. This means, add cameras, lamps and reading equipment. "The advantage of the drone is that we can guide it, see where we want to take the reading and based on that, take the required information."

Dr. Valtierra mentions that in a future stage of the project, they could even use drones to determine how much they advanced in the previous shift, or what volume was extracted that day.

The project is financed with resources from the Program for the Teacher's Professional Development (PRODEP), and they have already began working with the adaptation of the drone. First, they will work with students and other researchers; they pretend for the work group to be multidisciplinary, affirmed the researcher.

To make the trial runs, UG has the mine "El Nopal". Once we have under control the lightning and safety matters for the drone, it will be tried in active mines. On the matter, the scholar mentioned that in the regions there are alternatives, such as the mine "El Cubo", "Mina de Rayas", and "Bolañitos."

The Prof. Joel Everardo Valtierra has a degree, a master degree and a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering; he is ascribed to the Department of Engineering in Mines, Metallurgy and Geology, and his line of research is in occupational safety and hygiene.