Substantiation of use of unmanned aerial vehicles in volume evaluation of mineral storages

The substantiation of use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in the common mineral storage photography as an independent method of storage volume evaluation alongside with the conventional techniques using electronic tacheometers and satellite systems is discussed. The scientific experiment included an in-situ test—surveying of twenty different-size warehouses of sand (volume from 300 to 60 000 m3) using two methods: GNSS-systems (Global Navigation Satellite System, satellite receiver Topcon Hiper SR) and UAV (quadcopter DJI Phantom 4 Pro TEO RTK PPK AGNSS L1/L2). The processing procedure of the quadcopter data in the environment Agisoft Metashape is comprehensively described. Using special software packages, volumes of the test storages are calculated, and divergences are determined. The curves of the divergences in the storage volumes evaluated using two survey methods as functions of the storage volumes are plotted. During the research, the digital models constructed using two methods of dense and scattered point clouds were compared. It is found that for the correct outlining of a mineral storage in modeling, it is expedient to use the model constructed using the dense point cloud with the resolution of 5 pixels/cm.

Voloshina E. A., Novozhenin S. Yu., Kelekhsaev S. K. Substantiation of use of unmanned aerial vehicles in volume evaluation of mineral storages. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2023;(11-1):305-321. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236_1493_2023_111_0_305.

E.A. Voloshina¹, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Assistant Professor, e-mail: Pravdina_EA@pers.spmi.ru, ORCID ID 0009-0002-4510-7138,
S.Yu. Novozhenin¹, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Assistant Professor, e-mail: Novozhenin_SYu@pers.spmi.ru, ORCID ID 0000-0001-5398-4777,
S.K. Kelekhsaev, Engineer-Surveyor, Karierproekt LLC, 199106, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, e-mail: kmd@spmi.ru,
¹ Empress Catherine II Saint-Petersburg Mining University, 199106, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

S.Yu. Novozhenin, e-mail: Novozhenin_SYu@pers.spmi.ru.

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