Data Digitalisation in the Open-Pit Mining Industry: A Scoping Review

Mining 4.0 has risen from the need of the extractive industry to answer the technical challenges that rapidly shift at the mining sites. Currently, many models can be developed to address this issue however, the way in which the digitalisation of information occurs is not entirely clear. Therefore, this scoping review aims to address the main digitalisation tools and processes used in the open-pit mining industry. As a secondary outcome, it intends to provide a better understanding of this new era and the emergence of Mining 4.0. A scoping review protocol with the guidelines set to conduct the review has already been published. The Preferred Reporting of Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses were used conduct the research: the keywords "digitalisation"/"digitalization") and "modelling"/"modeling"), which were combined with "open pit" and "open cast" and applied in the most appropriate databases. Initially, 6775 records were identified; after applying exclusion criteria such as year, document type, source type, language, and after a first screen throughout each study title, 65 papers were considered eligible. The records were full-text screened in order to retrieve the needed information, where only 23 records remained. After, the snowballing technique was applied, and 5 more papers were added to the study. It was identified different techniques and ways of applying them; the chosen processes and tools were chosen according to the purpose of each study. Most of the studies combined photogrammetric techniques (using unmanned aerial vehicles) with topographic information. Terrestrial laser scanning techniques were also reported. Regarding the software, AgiSoft PhotoScan was chosen as the primary digitalisation tool in most studies. Hopefully, this scoping review will help authors to understand what possibilities they have in terms of software and tools, according to the issue they are trying to solve.