MINING & QUARRYING
Drone Survey Services for Mining & Quarrying in India
Monthly stockpile volumetrics, pit progress surveys, highwall inspection and haul-road monitoring — flown by DGCA-certified pilots and delivered as survey-grade deliverables your planning team can work from.
Mines and quarries measure the same ground over and over. A drone survey replaces days of walking a pit with a flight of 30 to 90 minutes, and produces a complete surface model rather than a scatter of spot levels. For an operating mine that usually means monthly or fortnightly volumetrics against a fixed control network, so month-on-month movement is directly comparable. We fly photogrammetry for open surfaces and LiDAR where benches, spoil or vegetation break line of sight, and tie every survey to the same RTK/PPK ground control so the numbers hold up in a reconciliation meeting.
What We Fly for Mining & Quarrying
Where It Gets Used
Monthly reconciliation
Independent volume figures for production reconciliation and royalty reporting, from the same control every cycle.
Mine planning
Current-surface DTMs fed straight into planning software for scheduling, design updates and short-interval control.
Statutory compliance
Documented lease-boundary and dump-height evidence for regulatory submissions and inspections.
Safety documentation
Visual and geometric records of unstable ground, captured without sending surveyors into hazardous zones.
Why AiRotor Labs for Mining & Quarrying?
Survey-grade, not indicative
RTK/PPK workflows with distributed ground control, and a stated accuracy figure with every deliverable rather than an unqualified number.
Repeatable control network
We establish and reuse permanent control so successive surveys are directly comparable — the point of volumetrics is the difference, not the absolute.
Formats your team already uses
DXF, LandXML, LAS/LAZ, GeoTIFF and CSV volume reports, aligned to your existing coordinate system.
Own hardware and pilots
We build our own platforms and employ our pilots, so remote sites and short weather windows do not turn into subcontractor scheduling problems.
Frequently Asked Questions
How accurate is a drone stockpile survey?
With RTK/PPK and properly distributed ground control, vertical accuracy on open stockpiles is typically in the 3–5 cm range, which puts volume error well under 2% on most piles. Accuracy degrades on very steep material faces and on stockpiles with heavy vegetation or standing water, and we state the achieved figure with each survey rather than quoting a best case.
How large an area can you cover in a day?
A photogrammetry survey typically covers 150–400 hectares per day depending on required ground sample distance and terrain, and LiDAR somewhat less. Most operating quarries are captured comfortably within a single mobilisation.
Do you need to stop mining operations during the survey?
No. We fly above working height and coordinate with the pit controller. Haulage and loading continue normally; we only ask that the immediate take-off and landing area is kept clear.
What permissions are required to fly over a mine?
Operations follow DGCA rules, which means a registered aircraft, a certified remote pilot and airspace clearance where the site falls near controlled airspace. Mine sites in restricted zones need prior permission through the Digital Sky platform, which we handle as part of mobilisation.
Talk to us about your mining & quarrying project
Tell us the site, the area and what you need measured. We will come back with a method, a timeline and a price.
Request a Quote