Spin-offs from space programmes are used in a new system for remote monitoring of heavy-duty machinery operating at excavation and mining sites worldwide. Using ESA’s Business Incubator, four companies working together with help from ESA experts, were able to pool ideas to produce a system with a faster response time, increasing both safety and productivity.
Mining is often done at remote sites, which are difficult to monitor from a company’s central control base. At the same time any problems or failures with the large and expensive trucks and excavators need to be resolved fast to minimise downtime. This calls for good and reliable communication facilities.
Dutch start-up company EstrellaSat, nurtured at ESA’s Business Incubator in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, has come up with a turnkey system based on space-derived technologies that enable a central control base to monitor machines and the people operating them at the company’s excavation sites in real time.
“Our goal is to increase the productive availability of ultra-heavy mining trucks, giant excavators and earthmovers that extract and transport mineral ore from open-cut mines to processing facilities in some of the most remote regions of the planet,” says Jean Verhardt, inventor of the system and manager of EstrellaSat BV.
