Boulder Detection, Foreign Object Detection on Conveyor Belt using 3D Imaging : 3DPM

Foreign objects can tear belts, damage rollers, damage and block chutes and screens, cause increased maintenance costs, costly production losses due to unscheduled downtime, and safety incidents such as rocks raining down off plant belts.

Whether the foreign object is a rock bolt, drill rod, plastic poly-pipe, tree root, vent bag, giant boulder or other objects, it can be identified rapidly before causing significant losses.  These foreign objects / contaminants / “uncrushables” / boulders can be identified in seconds with our 3D imaging solution 3DPM.

"3DPM provides us with reliable boulder and rock bolt detection in a demanding environment, ...  has given us the opportunity to take control of where we handle boulders and rock bolts in our feeding line, ... and belt stops can be handled in a safer and easier way" (Anders Forslund from Boliden Garpenberg)

Tramp metal magnets are part of the solution for metal objects, but they don’t always find the rock bolt, or drill rod, and 3DPM compliments tramp metal magnets at a number of sites.

One customer uses 3DPM to detect more than 1000 boulders a year, eliminating what would cause numerous safety incidents, damage and losses.

In addition, 3DPM also provides bulk volume measurement, and can provide world-leading online particle size distribution measurement without any need for taking belt-cuts and performing distribution “calibration”/model-fiting.  More Info on the Particle Size Distribution page

IGO Nova Nickel mine uses 3DPM to detect both foreign objects and measure particle size distribution for speed control of their SAG mill.  3DPM foreign object detection prevents numerous blockages of the SAG feed chute and major production losses.

3DPM is our world-leading real-time 3D imaging solution for bulk material measurement that mitigates critical sources of measurement error that other systems do not, giving you a reliable, consistent measurement over years of operation.

"The 3DPM system has been running reliably for the last 5 years with only minor maintenance required and is an active part of the mill control strategy on an on-going basis" Paul Hudson IGO, and Greg Gomes-Sebastaio ImproveIO (MetPlant 2023).

3DPM is a partnership between Innovative Machine Vision and Swedish engineering firm Optimation (formally MBV-Systems).

Contact us to discuss your needs

If boulder detection in mining is your interest consider this article by our Principal Scientist Dr Matthew Thurley