SPECULATIONS ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION

Abstract

How will modern computer-based techniques influence future mining systems? This paper summarizes the state of the art in artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation, and speculates about their future use in mining. Two main limitations of existing systems are (a) the inability of systems to sense and respond to changing environmental conditions, and (b) the difficulty of setting up new tasks and modifying existing ones. Improvements in technology will increase the use of all three techniques in many applications. However, fundamental problems remain in making systems exhibit "intelligence", respond to the changing environmental conditions and learn new tasks.