By distributing the Torsa Collision Avoidance and Blindsight personnel detection technologies, Aptella is on a mission to help Australian miners get home safe every day.
While safety has come a long way in the mining industry, there’s no denying there are many dangers in the profession. People can make mistakes, but when near giant equipment hauling tonnes of rock, mistakes can be costly.
An automation and positioning specialist, Aptella has been developing and distributing new solutions to avoid collisions on mine sites across Australia and south-east Asia for more than 15 years.
With the emergence of innovations like artificial intelligence (AI) and hazard avoidance technologies, the task of monitoring safe work procedures is steadily moving out of the hands of people and passed to trusted technologies.
Machine learning enables users to use insight from millions of data points on a single screen and make decisions backed by processing power previously unthinkable to humans.
One supplier of such technology is determined to see Australia’s mines come along the journey to a safer, more technologically integrated future.
Aptella recently joined forces with international technology giant Torsa to distribute a new collision avoidance technology to Australian mines.
Traditional collision avoidance systems often rely on a wearable tag or device that positions miners in reference to machines, sending alerts when they get too close.
But with the Torsa Collision Avoidance technology, a predictive algorithm monitors and analyses interactions between vehicles and personnel with centimetre-level precision, without the need for any wearables.
Aptella mining product manager Denzil Khan said Torsa is an industry leader in collision avoidance.
“Collision avoidance isn’t just about identifying risk, it’s about taking corrective action,” Khan told Safe to Work. “By using a multi-sensor approach, Torsa can identify not only vehicles in the vicinity, but those out of the line of sight that pose an unseen risk to miners.”
Torsa Collision Avoidance takes these points of data and processes them in real time to provide an educated alert to operators.
“Whether a machine or person – moving or stationary – the solution is able to determine exactly what’s happening,” Khan said. “It’s drumming up a lot of interest in both the surface and underground sectors, as it’s usually difficult to have highly accurate collision avoidance technology so far below the surface.
“Torsa incorporates not only productive mining equipment but also all ancillary equipment, meaning miners have complete coverage across their fleet and workforce, helping them ensure everyone goes home safely every day.”
While Torsa is seeing great success across the industry, there’s another technology in Aptella’s distribution repertoire taking the industry by storm: Blindsight.
Brought to the market by heavy industry software expert Presien, Blindsight boasts AI capabilities pre-trained for industrial applications.
The technology works by detecting a potentially dangerous on-site situation about to unfold and alerting the operator, calling their attention to the risk before it turns into a costly accident.
But that’s not what sets Blindsight apart, according to Aptella mining executive manager Andrew Granger.
“The real differentiator is that it’s an integrated system that has a full reporting suite on the back end,” Granger told Safe to Work.
“A standalone system doesn’t offer visibility of what’s going on, whereas an integrated system with comprehensive real-time reporting is a game-changer for allowing managers and supervisors to see behaviours or habits that may be compromising safety.”
Blindsight gives users access to a full spectrum of data, including automated health and safety reports, so elements like safety metrics and site performance can be quantified with the tap of a finger.
Granger said Blindsight can also be tailored to each site’s requirements, no matter the equipment they have in operation.
“If you need a certain cone, for example, recognised on one site but not on another, the AI can be trained and developed to alert accordingly,” he said. “We’re finding huge success with leading mining companies across Australia around those high-risk areas where there are larger machines operating alongside smaller equipment and personnel.
“Unfortunately, there are ongoing instances where workers are being hit by unseen plant they didn’t know was moving, so having the Blindsight system in place is alerting operators very quickly and eliminating the risk.”
With new technologies increasingly incorporating AI, Granger and Khan agree miners can be confident in Aptella’s long history delivering top-tier solutions that make a difference on-site.
“The AI boom has been happening for a little while now, but for Aptella, it’s about using the data we’re gathering to create even more value for our customers,” Khan said.
Granger said this data can help miners not only on their journey to keep workers safe, but to increase productivity and profitability.
“We’re working to produce better software, better hardware and better value,” he said.
“By partnering with developers like Torsa and Presien, we can offer Australian mines a leg up into a safer, more productive, data-driven era.”
This feature also appears in the January-February issue of Safe to Work.