Unmanned Aircraft are steadily finding their way into the mining industry. There is a wealth of  potential applications where UAV offer major advantages compared to existing  exploration and mapping technologies.

Well accepted in the industry are now applications based on aerial photography, such as photogrammetry and mapping.  Using off the shelf consumer cameras and very affordable photogrammetric software we are able to generate elevation models with better than 3 cm horizontal and vertical accuracy.

More advanced applications, such as geophysics, thermal infrared, hyperspectral, lidar etcetera are still less well established, and usually restricted to experimental projects. 

This session addresses the issues surrounding the  use of UAV-technology  in Earth sciences, Mining, Mineral exploration and hydrocarbon industry.  Speakers are invited to present on topics such as:  new concepts for sensors, development and prototyping, testing and validation, system integration, data processing, case studies,  and legislation.