ROBOMINERS Consortium Meeting, Tallinn – La Palma Research Centre

It was in Tallinn, Estonia, that the ROBOMINERS project partners were brought together to discuss the current state of this H2020 project as well as to prepare the future steps in the development of the bio-inspired robot for mining mineral deposits that are small or difficult to access. If successful, ROBOMINERS technology could shape the future of the mineral exploration and exploitation industries and at large adapt the raw materials sector to more sustainable practices.

The meeting in Tallinn, held on the 14th and 15th of January 2020, kickstarted on the first day with a revision of the project’s technical work packages. From Robotics to Raw Materials the ROBOMINERS partners discussed a number of topics that are likely to shape the current and future development of the project’s main concept: to develop a robot that can mine in difficult environments in flooded conditions. After these, technical sessions showed light on the main topics of the project. Here, partners could discuss and contribute to more specific robotics and raw materials items. Examples include the use of legged locomotion as a means of robotic movement or the most adequate geological environments and commodities to be mined with the Robotminer.

On the second day the ROBOMINERS team had a “Workshop on bio-inspired legged locomotion” with presentations based on Robotics developments made by the consortium partners. Then, LPRC hosted its own foresight activity: a Horizon Scanning exercise – where the company members tried to lay the current state-of-play and future developments in key specific areas within the robotics and raw materials fields, in an interactive exercise with the ROBOMINERS internal experts. The results of this exercise will allow the LPRC team to better prepare and adapt the remaining foresight tasks envisaged for WP8 – Active roadmapping and clustering.