Improvements for automatic pushback generation

In open pit mining, planning production phases, i.e. pushbacks, significantly affects the profitability. Generating practical pushbacks is a complex and time consuming task, mostly due to the difficulty of adhering to the geometric constraints of the mining operation such as the minimum width, the smoothness of the pit shell, and continuity of each pushback. A new method has recently been developed by our team that successfully integrates these constraints. The method modifies the infeasible pushbacks created by conventional methods to have feasible geometries. This proposed renewal of the project aims to improve the method and move it towards commercialization. Specifically, the goals include: 1) integrate additional geometric constrains, the vertical depth, in pushback generation, 2) test the algorithms on a variety of real datasets. 3) develop an optimization to improve the NPV of the generated feasible pushbacks 4) assist in producing a transferable product for the industrial partner.

Faculty Supervisor:

Denis Marcotte

Student:

Partner:

Datamine Canada Inc

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

École Polytechnique de Montréal

Program: