Unmanned air drone set to take off.

A fledging Sudbury mining technology firm believes they have a high-tech answer to explore underground places where no miner dares to tread.

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Rod and Clara Steele, the husband-and-wife team of Tesman Inc. are keeping a prototype vehicle under wraps in preparation for an eventual field test later this fall.

Their project is being guardedly referred to as a semi-autonomous unmanned air vehicle designed for flight reconnaissance in underground mines or any subterranean environment.

If the flight demonstration goes well, their vehicle could be an invaluable health and safety tool that could also save mining companies time and money when dealing with blocked ore passes, inspecting mined-out stopes or examining unventilated areas.

To Rod, miners are "professional lifers at resolving problems."

In every underground excavation, there are hazardous areas for miners to venture but there still needs to be regular functions performed there, such as doing reconnaissance.

In the case of pinpointing the problem with a plugged-up ore pass, a semi-autonomous, joystick-controlled vehicle can help.

"Miners can overcome anything, but they have to get a picture of what's going on first."

As a mining engineer and a career operations supervisor, the idea came to Rod through an accumulation of his experiences working in Canada, South Africa, Australia and the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.

In the past, it wasn't uncommon for miners to climb a blocked ore pass with blasting powder on their shoulders to place a charge.

In some safety-challenged environments, close calls for miners in these situations happened on a regular basis.

Today, obstructions are removed by placing a concussion shot at the end of a blasting pole up 20 metres or more against the blockage.

"But you can't see what you're putting them against with the charge," says Rod. Sometimes that can do more harm than good, if repeated attempts damage the structure.

Even placing the charge can be hazardous for miners at the bottom of an ore chute if the wet muck above lets loose.

But many companies still did not have good solutions to deal with these problems. It was left up to the miners to handle it.

Since relocating back to Canada and settling in Azilda, just outside Sudbury, the Steele's have tapped into the wealth of knowledge in the mining supply community as well as government funding sources to bring their idea to fruition.

Rod says the staff at Ionic Engineering and Everett Henderson of Minewise Technology were of particular help in overcoming some technical hurdles.

They also give credit to the Canadian Mining Industry Research Organization (CAMIRO), Cambrian College's NORCAT development centre and the federal government's Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) who were instrumental in securing some project start-up money.

For reasons of proprietary technology, about all Rod and Clara will divulge about the vehicle is that, "It flies."

They refuse to divulge any details about the vehicle's air frame, power train or communications system. But it can be compared to an unmanned aerial drone.

Their prototype is about the size of half a kitchen table--"a flying platform"--weighing 15 to 20 pounds and equipped with distance-measuring sensors, infra-red lights and cameras with video feed back to an operator who can view the images on a lap-top.

"I'm taking joystick (technology) and giving (the operator) a view using the vehicle as reconnaissance to see what the problem is."

Rod cautions the vehicle is not a version of telemining, where an automated process replaces workers underground. "The vehicle allows you to examine the problem but you still have to go in and solve it."

By IAN ROSS 

Northern Ontario Business