Equipment manufacturer Atlas Copco in April launched its automated surface drill rig – the SmartROC – onto the South African market in the mining town of Kathu, in the Northern Cape.

The SmartROC range of rigs comprises six drills and offers automation features such as the ability to operate up to three drill rigs from a single BenchREMOTE base station, which is a remote operator station. According to Atlas Copco business line manager Hedley Birnie, this feature allows drill operators to significantly improve their operational efficiencies.

The autonomy also enhances safety, as the operator can work a safe distance from high walls and other dangerous areas. “The rig is semiautomatic to allow integration with the operator. “The actual drill setup and drill cycle can be run at the touch of a button,” he says.

The SmartROC is able to drill holes as a single function, from the stages of drill setup to completion of drilling. This involves the rig autonomously setting up its feed- in angle according to the operator’s specification, drilling the hole and adding more rods as depth progresses and then stripping the hole while replacing the used rods in a carousel on the rig until the operation has been completed.

Intelligent functions of the SmartROC system allow the user to communicate with the rig through a flash drive or Wi-Fi network, sending drill patterns to the rig with global positioning system coordinates, hole angles and depths.

Using Atlas Copco’s Hole Navigation System, the drill rig can then locate the exact coordinates and hole position on the rig, enabling the holes to be drilled according to plan. Operational data can also be measured and reported, either by Wi-Fi or by flash drive.

“By using Atlas Copco’s office management systems, such as ROC Manager or Surface Manager, the customer can obtain statistics such as rig availability, actual drilling time, fuel consumption, penetration rate, metres drilled and total metres drilled per shift.

The SmartROC is developed to be fuel efficient and, as such, Atlas Copco has incorporated a new engine management system that can reduce fuel consumption by up to 15%. The management system controls all aspects of the drill cycle, offering better efficiencies from the compressor and engine, which, in turn, reduces the duty cycle on the engine.

Further, to enhance safety, a mechanism is used to account for rods in use, thereby ensuring the drill cannot move until all rods are accounted for, which will signal to the drill that it is safe to move to another location. This prevents tramming of the hole with a rod still in the ground.

Smart technology built into the SmartROC also enables it to operate on uneven benches, as it is capable of drilling several holes to the same depth above sea level. In addition, to ensure a drill never exits its drilling pattern area, a ‘geofence’ can be virtually erected, demarcating the high wall and area of operation.

Birnie tells Mining Weekly that there are five SmartROC rigs already operating in South Africa, two of which are at Anglo American’s Kolomela mine, in the Northern Cape, and three at Anglo American’s Mogalakwena platinum mine, in Mpumalanga.

However, the SmartROC has been in operation for several years at mines in Australia, where about 152 have been operating since 2007.

“We are currently in discussions with a few customers and the prospect is good for the SmartROC product in the future. We have the market potential for 10 to 15 units to be delivered over the next year or two, dependent on the economic climate of our local mining market,” he says.

The SmartROC D65 will perform most efficiency within a hole range of between 110 mm and 203 mm. However, it will drill hole sizes of up to 223 mm to a maximum depth of 54 m on a long-feed rig using 6 m × 114 mm drill pipes.

The standard short feed rig uses a 5 m × 114 mm drill pipe, which allows it to drill to a depth of 45 m with the same hole diameter range. “Atlas Copco also has many cases where we are drilling pit dewatering projects to a depth of 225 m and wall decompression to a depth of 200 m, which is made possible by a simple upgrade to the carousel,” says Birnie.