Aura Minerals knows that managing its gold and copper ore inventory can be a time consuming and dangerous process. LiDAR scans of their mines and inventory piles took days to get the data, weren’t consistently accurate, and their surveyors had to constantly put themselves in harm's way.
Fabio Ribeiro, a Technology Strategist for Aura Minerals, knew that the best way to get faster, more accurate data was to leverage drones - however, most high-accuracy solutions required a GCP workflow, which meant surveyors had to brave unsafe conditions to place and maintain survey GCPs. During his competitive analysis of drone solutions, Fabio discovered the Skycatch High Precision Package.
The High Precision Package eliminated GCP workflows, so his surveyors were safe while maintaining sub 5cm accuracy. The Skycatch Edge1 GNSS base station and edge compute module, included in the Package, reduced the survey time from 20 hours to 4 hours, so Aura Minerals could make important inventory decisions the same day.
The biggest ROI from the High Precision Package was because of the consistent accuracy of when they surveyed their dirt stockpiles:
“We use Skycatch to precisely measure how much dirt our contractors are moving. There are enormous gains: if we improve the margin of error in the volume calculations by just one percent, we're talking about saving over $300,000 dollars a year, per mine.”
- Fabio Ribeiro, Technology Strategist, Aura Minerals
To learn how your mining operation can make decisions 75% faster and save your mine $300,000 a year, download the Aura Minerals Case Study below.
