Mining company Hexagon Mining will showcase the interferometric mine blast radar (IBIS-FB) remote sensing monitoring system, designed to support the assessment of blasting operations and control their impact on pit slopes and nearby structures, at this year’s MINExpo International.

“Our monitoring technologies ensure that mines are designed and maintained to guarentee safety and profitability. Solutions such as the IBIS-FB are pivotal to the integrated and innovative technology in our life-of-mine (LoM) approach,” said Hexagon Mining president Hélio Samora, adding that the company is looking forward to showcasing the IBIS-FB at MINExpo from September 26 to 28 at the Las Vegas Convention Centre, in Nevada, in the US.

The IBIS-FB is a product from high-tech solutions provider Ingegneria Dei Sistemi (IDS) GeoRadar and is designed to qualitatively and quantitatively monitor blast vibrations. Based on microwave interferometry technology, it integrates standard vibration monitoring systems, providing remote broad area measurements of ground vibrations with high accuracy.

IBIS-FB avoids the need to physically place any sensor or marker on the slope by acquiring a large dataset at various distances during each blast. Using this data, the user can determine the role of blasting and pit stability, explains Hexagon Mining, which is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, in the US, and has offices worldwide.

The user receives broad area measurements of each blast, which include the displacement, velocity and acceleration trends over distance and time, the peak particle velocity (PPV) spectral distribution and the PPV trend versus the scaled distance.

Hexagon Mining will also display other new solutions from its operations, planning and safety suites at its MINExpo booth.

The company explains that it solves surface and underground challenges with proven technologies for planning, operations and safety, bringing surveying, design, fleet management, production efficiency improvements and collision avoidance together in a LoM solution that connects people and processes.

IDS is an Italian company, designing and providing products and services for subsurface investigation, investigations and monitoring of structures, and slope stability monitoring.

The company’s IBIS product range became the first commercial ground-based interferometric radar with linear scan synthetic aperture radar capabilities in September. This “ground-breaking” product range has introduced “a new standard in the dynamic and static monitoring of slopes, landslides and structures”, highlights Hexagon Mining.

The IBIS interferometric radar products are aimed at providing a unique solution to the problem of monitoring small movements in ground or structures, allowing the remote, long-range, continuous real-time measurement of large areas, the company concludes.