The most significant challenge to mineral explorers in Australia is to discover new deposits at significant depths below the surface, in areas that are completely covered by thick sediments. Exploration drilling is key to identifying minerals below the surface, but it's expensive and the single biggest cost for companies.

 

The MinEx CRC is helping to further develop and test a new coiled tubing (CT) drilling rig for greenfields mineral exploration. This solution – called RoXplorer® – provides real-time information to enable more effective exploration in areas of deep cover. It delivers continuous samples and information while drilling to allow companies to make decisions about exploration strategy in the field. This enables the RoXplorer® to achieve significant improvements in productivity, safety and environmental performance compared to conventional drilling methods.

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As part of a collaboration between the MinEx CRC and the Australian Research Centre for Interactive and Virtual Environments, a fully immersive VR experience of the RoXplorer® platform has been developed. The VR digital twin will be used to optimise engineering and user workflows of the drill site, train drillers on the new platform, and act as a technology showcase for stakeholder engagement and commercialisation. Visualising RoXplorer® in your own environment is also possible with an augmented reality application that can run on mobile devices.

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To give you a glimpse of how RoXplorer® is changing the game, see our showcase videos below!