Drone Survey Agent

The Problem

Traditional ground-based surveying of open-cut mines is time-consuming and limits how often you can update site models. Survey crews need access to active pit faces, stockpile areas, and haul roads — all places where vehicle movements and ground instability create real safety risks. Most operations survey critical areas weekly or fortnightly, which means you are making planning decisions on stale data. Stockpile volumes are estimates. Pit progress tracking lags behind reality.

How It Works

The Drone Survey Agent automates the full survey workflow. It generates flight plans based on the areas you need covered, processes the captured imagery and LiDAR data, and produces 3D surface models, contour maps, and volumetric calculations. Stockpile volumes are calculated from the processed point clouds, giving you accurate tonnage figures without tape measures and assumptions. Change detection picks up wall movement, erosion, or unauthorised access between surveys.

Survey outputs integrate with your mine planning software — Deswik, Surpac, Vulcan — so the planning team is always working with current terrain data rather than last month’s pickup.

Safer, More Frequent Surveys

The real win is survey frequency. When surveys take hours instead of days and do not require people on the ground, you can run them daily or even after every blast. That changes how you plan and reconcile. Pit-to-plan reconciliation becomes a daily check, not a monthly exercise. Stockpile management moves from estimation to measurement.

If you want to get more value from your drone survey data, we can integrate the outputs into your existing mine planning and reporting systems.