Portugese robot to explore flooded underground mines
The technology should also help increase environmental safety in many countries.

As the Macau News Agency (MNA) reports, the Institute for Systems Engineering and Computers, Technology and Science (INESC TEC) from Portugal has developed a robot for exploring flooded underground mines that can navigate autonomously for eight hours. According to MNA, the Porto-based institute announced plans to test the robot named "UX-1NEO" this week at the old urgeiriça uranium mine in Nelas (Viseu district), Portugal. MNA noted that these are the first tests of the robot, developed in Porto as part of the European project UNEXUP, which has the ability to navigate autonomously for eight hours at a depth of up to a thousand meters. "The new scouting robot has improved 'hardware' and 'software' for better performance in terms of range and depth, as well as data acquisition, management and processing," said the developers. INESC TEC researcher Alfredo Martins added that it is "one of the most advanced underwater robots in the world" as it incorporates a new modular architecture, "high operationality" and "wide range of sensors". The robot's new capabilities "make scouting missions more reliable and safer at lower costs," said Martins. The robot, the volume of which corresponds approximately to that of a sphere with a diameter of 70 centimeters, has six cameras, three-dimensional (3D) sensor systems based on "lasers" and acoustic mapping and image sensors. This autonomous underwater device enables the exploration of sunken mines at depths of up to a thousand meters and receives "relevant" information such as the structural condition, so that one knows whether there have been collapses or other problems. It is also gathering vital geological information, according to the report, to "determine the existence of mineral resources of economic interest that would otherwise be more difficult, dangerous, or costly to extract". There are currently around 30,000 disused mines in Europe, some of which have been flooded but which still contain important and exploitable mineral resources, MNA said. "This project will enable the introduction of a robot to the European market that is able to extract geological, mineralogical and spatial information from flooded mines and other confined underwater environments in the safest possible way," emphasizes INESC TEC. In addition to the institute in Porto, the project partners include the University of Miskolc and UNEXMIN GeoRobotics (Hungary), the La Palma Research Center and the Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain), Resources Computing International Ltd (Great Britain), the University of Tampere (Finland) and the Geological Survey of Slovenia.





