May 5, 2021, Strata Worldwide has signed a new Premium Partnership Agreement with Future Fibre Technologies to distribute the company’s FFT Aura IQ™ Conveyor Health Monitoring System into mining and tunneling operations. This technology is designed to use real-time data to enhance asset management, improve reliability and introduce new predictive capabilities for monitoring the condition of conveyor belts.

When conveyor belt rollers fail it can cause damage to the assets and significant downtime to the operation. The Aura IQ solution can quickly and safely identify and classify specific early-stage conveyor roller failure modes and symptoms, providing unique and timely information for improved and more efficient maintenance, increased operational performance and enhanced health and safety risk management. The data can be integrated into onsite reporting and

planned maintenance schedules. This substantially reduces costs by eliminating unplanned maintenance work, extending the life cycle of idlers and keeping both personnel and operations safe and healthy.

“The Aura IQ system was developed in partnership with industry leading research organisation Mining3 over a course of seven years,” says Future Fibre Technologies Group Head of Innovation, Andrew Hames. “It uses the latest in technology and artificial intelligence to replace what is currently a very labour-intensive process. Maintenance staff walk along kilometers of conveyor belt with infrared cameras, handheld audible devices and for visual inspections, looking for subjective indications of failed rollers and then marking each for follow-up. Our technology not only tracks failure progression and flags wear symptoms, failure modes and wear status but also shows you where to find it.”

“We are thrilled to be the first to offer this technology to our mining and tunneling customers,” said Mike Berube, CEO of Strata Worldwide. “We’ve become known for our development of leading-edge underground communication and monitoring networks, and the Aura IQ system is an ideal complement, adding conveyor health monitoring to our advanced technology portfolio.”