EBC Fibre Optic Technology Receives grant for the following activity(ies):

The aim is to develop a system that can trace obstacles in the ground such as boulders, bombs, plastic piping up to 1 to 1.5 metres in front of the drill head and visualise their size so that one can make targeted one-off adjustments to the drilling direction and depth. Knowing the size of the boulder, for example, with the envisaged system will allow the drilling engineer to make targeted adjustments, whereas this is currently not the case and it regularly happens that the drill head collides with the same obstacle several times.

Of course, the intended instrument must be compact (must go along with the drilling in the ground), be able to create an image quickly (not like an MRI where it takes about 10 minutes for the image to be realised) and there must be wireless communication from the instrument to the drillmaster. The drill master must see the threat coming and be able to manage it in a timely manner.

Work will include research, concept development, prototype realisation and testing.