An Improved Sliding System Based on Multipulse Scanner and Rangefinder for Pile Inventory

Pile inventory is essential for efficient production planning in indoor industries. In our previous work, we used a combination of a single-pulse scanner and a rangefinder for online pile inventory, which involved a sliding procedure to collect 3-D geometry of the pile surface. However, this method was limited by poor horizontal accessibility during the sliding procedure, failing to capture the complete 3-D geometry of piles beyond boundary range. To address this, we develop an improved system integrating a multipulse scanner with a rangefinder, allowing for the real-time capture of a complete point cloud of the pile surface and enabling immediate volume calculation. This new system was tested in a controlled gold and copper mine setting. The experimental results showed that our system not only provides a more complete data capture ability than our previous setup but also outperforms the existing commercial scanners, such as GEO-SLAM in data quality and pile inventory accuracy. With over 99% repeatability and accuracy, the developed system promises to support diverse applications, such as volume estimation in mining, construction of 3-D geometries, and real-time vehicle loading inventories in future projects.