Application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Mapping and Modeling of Indian Mines

Geospatial data play a key role in the preparation of mine plan, lease boundary fixing and volume calculation of minerals in the mine. The conventional practice proposed by Indian Bureau of Mine is using differential global positioning system (DGPS), CartoSAT/LISS IV satellite imagery and cadastral maps to provide lease boundary fixing, digital elevation model of mine and rectified cadastral map. Most of the mine has steep terrain which is difficult to survey using DGPS/total station, and it involves human risks. The temporal resolution of the satellite, cost and time required to procure the satellite imagery is high. The increasing affordability of civilian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), aerial data acquisition is easy in any topography, time-saving and less cost compared to traditional survey technique like total station and DGPS. The main aim of this paper is to incorporate the proposed workflow to generate the high accurate geospatial data for Indian Mines through the integration of UAV and traditional survey technique. Based on the proposed workflow, UAV-based survey conducted on a iron ore mine and the output geodata were generated. The study discussed UAV geodata-based analytical technique to identify the encroachment, slope unstable area of mine, water disposal route and volume of the stockpile. This helps to reduce the violations in terms of quantity and area, provide a better decision support system to the lease of the mine and increase the revenue of the government.