NTR at the Skalisty mine tested the domestic positioning system of its own development

2024: Positioning System Testing

The NTR company at the Skalisty mine tested a domestic positioning system of its own design. NTR announced this on April 2, 2024.

The development is completely Russian. This system will allow Norilsk Nickel in the future not to depend on the supply of foreign software and equipment.

The system allows you to monitor the operation of machines underground in real time. This is the program code and algorithms for high precision navigation of a self-propelled drilling rig in real time.

Pilot tests were carried out in the conditions of the existing mining, in the deepest mine in Eurasia. Beacons were installed along the perimeter of the entire face, and a navigation block was installed in a self-propelled drilling rig, which, "clinging" to them, allows the machine to position itself, giving out coordinates. The system will be an excellent tool for a more accurate drilling process.

In the summer of 2024, a full-scale test and test of the system will take place on a long cycle of work.

Taking a step towards import substitution, we will be able to achieve a significant economic effect: we will help the driver in drilling, because he will go strictly according to the project, without "grabbing" the empty rock, thereby gaining the potential to improve the quality of the mined rock mass, "said Anton Maksimov, chief manager of the innovation department of the Polar Branch of Norilsk Nickel.

The project on a global scale is unique. Before us, no one has implemented such systems. The drilling rig generally has a sewn-in navigation system, but it is based on other algorithms and equipment, which is not supplied to Russia by April 2024. This is know-how, because the program code is completely Russian, and all equipment is produced in our country, in our own production, "said Alexey Kochetkov, head of navigation and robotics systems at NTR LLC.