Patent Application
20090177324
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to the use of robotic technology in mining industry, specifically in improving the representativeness of material sampling
2. Prior Art
Once the mineral is extracted from the mine, it must be subjected to a treatment to increase its purity. This metallurgical treatment is called concentration, which is carried out in a concentrating plant usually located near the production unit of the mine. This plant concentrates the minerals, until their metal content reaches commercial values. The stages of this process are crushing and grinding (the progressive reduction of particles until reaching sizes lower than one millimeter), followed by the flotation process using chemical reagents, where the valuable mineral (copper and molybdenum concentrates) is separated from the gangue (which is the worthless material, called tailing).
For molybdenum concentrate, after its processing in a concentrator, it is stored in hoppers or in closed warehouses and its permanence as stock depends on the sales program, availability of transport units, etc.
After that, the concentrate is put in bags so it is stored in the so called Maxibags. In this stage and for the purposes of quality control, the humidity, the product grade and the weight of the unit to be transported are determined.
Finally, the loading takes place, the frontal loaders which deposit the concentrate in the hopper of the transportation unit (trucks or wagons) which is covered with a canvas attached with chains or a rope to avoid losses of the product during the transportation.
The importance of the sampling process of minerals is based on the fact that all the decisions made in relation to the Mining project, from exploration to the closing of the mine, are based on values obtained from the sampled material, for which sample is a part or portion extracted from a group by using methods allowing to consider this as a representative part of the average quality and conditions of a group or the technique employed in this selection or the selection of a part statistically determined to deduce the value of one or more characteristics of the group.
Particularly, the task of molybdenum sampling in MaxiBags has the disadvantage of being carried out manually which causes the system to be less efficient due to the low representativeness of the samples obtained.
A Robot System and Method have been developed to carry out the sampling tasks for molybdenum in an automated way, so as to ensure the representativeness of the sample and the control over the product to be commercialized.
This invention relates to a new robot system as well as a robotic method for the sampling of maxibags, which are carried out automatically through anthropomorphous robotic arms of at least 5 degrees of freedom, which are installed at one side of the sampling area.
With reference to FIGS. No 1 and 2, the robot system is composed mainly of one robotic manipulator (1) of at least 5 degrees of freedom, provided with a communication, acquisition and control system, and a gripping mechanism (2) to allow, in a sequential and programmed way, to take, manipulate, and release a sampling device or tool (3) from a tool holder (4) located at one of its sides, which is moved through a defined path to the sampling area, where the sampling process will take place, in a sequential and programmed way, to a certain number of maxibags to be defined (5).
This application claims the benefit of provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/734,971 filed 2005 Nov. 10 by the present inventor
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60734971 | Nov 2005 | US |
