ROBOMINER: Development of a Highly Configurable and Modular Scaled-Down Prototype of a Mining Robot

Abstract

Historically, mining operations have faced numerous challenges, including safety hazards, inefficiencies, and environmental concerns. However, recent advances in robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence have presented opportunities for the mining industry. The ROBOMINERS project, a Horizon 2020 European Union initiative, aims to revolutionize the mining ecosystem by implementing disruptive robotic concepts. One such concept is resilience, which involves enabling mining robots to reconfigure morphologically during operation. This article presents the development of a modular robotic system that focuses on modularity and self-assembly to provide insight into developing a highly adaptable and compact solution for future mining robots. The robotic system is composed of a set of highly configurable modular robotic platforms that can be reconfigured with other robotic modules or submodules to form more complex systems to perform different tasks. Several module configurations are presented, and different locomotion experiments were carried out to test the ability of the modules to navigate unstructured environments. The modules exhibited great maneuverability in unstructured terrain and demonstrated self-assembly and reconfiguration capabilities during operation. This is a foundational step towards the long-term goal of developing compact autonomous agents capable of self-assembly and mining task execution.