Conventional methods of advanced conveyor failure detection is often unreliable, subjective, time-consuming and labour intensive, but that’s all about to change.

Aura IQ is set to revolutionise conveyor health monitoring, using real-time data to optimise production and on-site performance, enhance occupational health, hygiene and safety management, and introduce exciting new predictive maintenance and support capabilities to asset management.

Having successfully completed surface and sub-surface testing with some of the world’s largest mining houses and bulk material handling facilities, Aura IQ is now available for sale globally.

Aura IQ’s award winning technology harnesses the power of Ava Risk Group’s fibre optic detection and sensing platform (FFT TM Aura Ai-2), combined with Mining3’s advanced signal processing algorithms, predictive analytics, and identification tools to acoustically monitor and assess conveyor health via cloud-based analysis, reporting and alerts.

Providing deeper insights to maintenance technicians, site personnel, regional operational hubs and global headquarters, conveyors are automatically connected to the cloud via an Industrial Grade Wireless Internet of Things (IoT) Gateway, enabling daily asset reliability reports from every conveyor, at every site around the world.

By transmitting a series of short, laser pulses along a single fibre optic cable retrofitted along the length of a conveyor, acoustic disturbances from the conveyor system cause microscopic changes in the backscattered laser light that is then categorised into known parameters.

Data is then simultaneously gathered from every metre of the conveyor and processed by Aura IQ to pre-emptively alert operators, either on or off-site (in operational hubs or control rooms), to potential failures before they happen.

“This is a game changing solution which will optimise conveyor performance and create substantial cost savings for operators,” said Andrew Hames, Head of Innovation, Extractives and Energy AVA Risk Group.

“A typical conveyor can have up to 7,000 bearings per kilometre, which means 7,000 potential points of failure.

Aura IQ can monitor the condition of every conveyor roller, eliminating the need to ‘walk the belt’ and allowing a controlled and scheduled plan of roller maintenance and replacement to be put in place,” explained Mr Hames.

*Article published in the October-December 2019 issue of The Asia Miner