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58 • ROCK products • March 2018 www.rockproducts.com The pattern of this older, 52-ft.-high, vertical-walled bench deep in the pit consisted of 5 ½-in. ,m .diameter blastholes sub-drilled 3 ft. to a total depth of 55 ft. Originally drilled with no angle from vertical, the bench wall had significant back- break beginning about halfway up, leaving uncertain surface conditions at the crest. Enhancing the operator's safety, the SmartROC D60 adds more than 10 ft. of horizontal reach from rig to hole. On a bench with 10-ft. burden, that's up to 20 ft. of distance from the wall's crest. Looking to reduce back-break of future shots, the blaster has given this pattern a 5-degree cast. Experimenting at these depths provides precautionary containment from the oppo- site pit wall. So far, the angle drilled precisely to plan by Quarry Services has been giving the blaster good results, effectively reducing back-break, improving consistency of fracture and leaving the crest with improved geometric support for the drillers, all while offering well-managed containment. Additional Functionalities The SmartROC D60 rigs not only locate and drill the holes exactly where planned but also help the drillers communicate – another skill Quarry Services drillers do better than anyone. Selman said that while he would never presume to tell a blaster his job, he does want to soft-sell his company's cut- ting-edge capabilities. "Customers can't ask us to do what we're capable of if they don't know what we're capable of," he noted. A SmartROC D60 rig's capabilities include high-precision GNSS-location, AutoDrill, automated rod handling, mea- sure-while-drilling, hole logging and reporting. Rig Remote Access data and line-of-sight wireless drilling from a BenchREMOTE control station are other features making it the market's most precise, most versatile DTH rig. With a SmartROC D60, the driller can make an on-the-spot, computer-optimized adjustment to the blasthole pattern. Drilling parameters are recorded and logged. Everything about that hole is communicable to the blaster, who uses the information to review the adjustment and consider alter- ations to subsequent patterns. Quarry Services also utilizes a face-profiling system based upon stereophotogrammetric imaging, a new technology, used in conjunction with SmartROC software. The software compares multiple photos of the same location from differing angles, to create a 3D digital image of the bench and proposed blasthole placement. Quarry Services is using the software to identify where a driller might have to make hole adjustments before ever tramming onto the bench. While the shift change was taking place on the bench, Charlie Selman's son, Charles, was in the office studying the comput- er-generated images of a blasthole layout in another area of the pit. While looking at the holes, Charles noticed something at an inside corner for this bench that the blast planner might want to know. He made slight adjustments to the hole place- ments and prepared a copy to email to the blaster for review and approval. Selman is looking forward to even more SmartROC-based capabilities. Although the SmartROC D60 can already be wirelessly operated from a BenchREMOTE control station, Selman is anxious for teleremote drilling. "I'd like to see mul- tiple rigs controlled long-distance, maybe by a single driller," he said. This capability exists for Epiroc's largest drill rigs, its high-production Pit Viper line. "We're really still at the beginning of where drilling is going. I believe there is so much more that can be done with the SmartROC yet." Information for this article courtesy of Epiroc – Part of the Atlas Copco Group. Automated drilling cycles mean the driller is freed up to perform other tasks he is accountable for. While this SmartROC D60 busily drills away in the background, this Quarry Services' driller is dressing another bit's carbides. A Quarry Services SmartROC D60 drill rig begins the next blasthole pattern. They count on precision to create controlled fragmentation, shown here in the previous blast's rock on the floor below. Computer-Based Drilling