Requirements for positioning of underground hard rock mining equipment and experimentation with a position estimating system

One of the cornerstones to telemining™ is the science of navigation. Although this is not a foreign subject to those in the mineral resource sector, its use in guidance of underground machines, remote geodetic surveying in an underground setting and positioning hard rock mining equipment is in its infancy.; The thesis explores the accuracy requirements for underground hard rock mining equipment and the fundamental equations shown in Chapter 4 enabling mining professionals to make specifications for alternative sensors used in positioning.; Experiments are performed on an inertial navigation system (INS) and the results of the work that was done intermittently over a three-year period has been examined in this treatise. The inertial navigation system performed well from a stability point of view and gave repeatable answers in the open pit and underground trials. After initialization, the unit would immediately jump to 10 cm CEP and grow to 40 cm CEP over time.; The research needs to continue in the development of this INS to make it more useful in positioning and for gyrocompassing in underground hard rock mines. There is a requirement to study the environment so that more variables (such as changes in gravity, effects of the rock mass type altitudes below sea level to name a few) may be accounted for when estimating the position of a machine. Finally, there is a need to work on the reference systems that would be the cornerstone of the navigation systems of the future.