Many mines have started to fit high precision guidance systems to their mining equipment. The systems are accurate enough to eliminate the need for survey design pegs in the field. Besides greatly increasing efficiency, this eliminates the need to have people on the ground outside vehicles, where they are most vulnerable to accidents. Dozers for example can complete earthworks, such as dams or drainage channels with no field pegging. Not only do the surveyors not have to put the pegs in, but the operators do not have to climb out of their cabs to look at them. Moreover the machines record the positions that they have worked and so build a gridfile of the completed job. This can be turned into an “as-built” drawing – all without ever having a surveyor in the field. A further safety benefit of the GPS system was recently revealed when a dozer was involved in a rollover accident. The sequence of events leading to the accident could be thoroughly reviewed because the GPS system had recorded the position of the dozer every few seconds. Blast hole drills can be set up to complete the blast pattern without the need for surveyors, or the drillers to mark out each hole – again eliminating the need for people to work in the open. On shovels and excavators, GPS systems can be set up to indicate the exact location of the bucket in three dimensions relative to the boundaries of the orebody or coal seam. In situations where the ore is not readily distinguishable from waste, this can save considerable field time for geologists and surveyors in marking out the ore body limits. Similarly in coal, the ability to selectively mine bands of different qualities is greatly enhanced, again without the need for people on the ground.

GPS survey and machine guidance applications are finding increasing acceptance in the mining industry. Widespread adoption of this technology has important safety benefits as a by product. In addition there are a number of applications where GPS systems may be fitted for primary safety purposes. Lack of satellites is the major problem to be overcome, but there are a number of possible solutions and more will be available in the future.