Dr Joel Spencer – Chief Executive Officer, The Institute for Drone Technology
ABSTRACT
The mining industry has been one of the great adopters of drone technology. The combination of clear use cases, the legal ability to operate drones around mines, the development of easily deployable systems, and the character of mine locations and the kinds of work undertaken, has seen drone use increase rapidly. Safety, cost efficiency and the ability more accurately capture actionable data (and new data) has underpinned this growth.
However, as in other industries, the deployment of drones in larger numbers has lead to a number of challenges for the safe operation of drone technology. Operating 50 drones safely is very different to operating 5 drones safely. We have been working with clients and partners in a number of industries, including in mining, to develop standardised safe management and training systems around the use of drone technology at scale. This presentation gives an overview of what this work has covered and where it is going in the future.
