Ground support and strata monitoring: what is needed?

With the ever-moving challenge to increase safety and productivity in mines, the ability to understand what your strata is doing in ‘real-time’ is incredibly important. New technologies need to be developed to allow time efficient monitoring of strata behaviour over the excavations desired life, along with the condition of ground support systems and how effectively they are functioning. Monitoring systems play an important function in maintaining the safe operation of underground mines. This paper will review technologies currently available; those being utilised and the effectiveness of such systems. Key desired outputs will be investigated along with the constraints of available technologies. To assist the underground mining industry to continue evolving in this area, an overview of digital trends will be provided as a guide to the direction for current and future technology developments.