Insights
The work behind the programme.
Insights is the programme's research journal: an accessible place to understand what our students and staff are investigating, why the work matters and what the evidence is beginning to show. Explore research summaries, programme updates, conference stories and perspectives that connect individual studies to safer, more productive mechanised mining.
Positioning an underground vehicle with cameras
Adam Neethling's visual-odometry research combines learned image features and uncertainty-aware correction to control drift underground.
View detailsTesting platinum-production decisions in simulation
Hloni Manyakoana's Bathopele case study represents the mine cycle as a connected system so productivity and maintenance changes can be tested safely.
View detailsWhat we are working on · Q2 2026
A programme-wide snapshot of current dissertations, new doctoral work and the models moving from research questions toward validated results.
View detailsA multi-physics twin for an underground LHD
Hanno Moes modelled an Epiroc Scooptram ST14 to study how vehicle dynamics and terrain affect braking and collision scenarios.
View detailsPredicting brake wear when the future does not look like the past
AFRICOMP 2026 research used multi-physics digital twins to explore brake-wear prognosis, including degradation outside the historical pattern.
View detailsTraction, stopping distance and safer skid-steered vehicles
At the AMRE Safety Seminar, RAMMS showed how terrain-aware traction estimates can strengthen braking, stability and collision-avoidance decisions.
View detailsPredicting engine health from the data an LHD already has
Bismarck Louw's hybrid Cummins engine model turns a small set of accessible measurements into a wider picture of condition and performance.
View detailsReading UG2 brittleness through its mineral fabric
Ncedo Matukane combined microscopy, rock tests and predictive models to build brittleness indices that account for how UG2 minerals meet and pack.
View detailsBuilding a traction-estimation digital twin for steep, low-profile mining
Inside the RAMMS model, experiments and algorithms that estimate anisotropic terrain traction, predict slip and detect changing ground conditions.
View detailsA roadmap from rock properties to actionable machine insight
The 2024 MMP Showcase connected student projects into a shared route from rock characterisation through hybrid models to real-time optimisation.
View detailsWhat makes a mining digital twin actionable?
A practical view of digital twins as synchronised models that estimate state, support optimisation and lead to an intervention on a mining asset.
View detailsRethinking the batch limits of underground blasting
A research perspective on whether mechanised preparation, charging and support could reduce the rigid timing losses of conventional drill-and-blast cycles.
View detailsWhat changes when the rock is really UG2?
Ulrich du Preez built a linear cutting machine to test UG2 directly, revealing fragmentation and variability that sandstone experiments alone would miss.
View detailsOne programme, three connected research thrusts
How RAMMS connects its official hard-rock, productivity and maintenance, and equipment-monitoring thrusts through a shared digital-twin research roadmap.
View detailsThe themes shaping mechanised-mining research
A synthesis of academic and industry signals that helped RAMMS connect automation, interoperability, maintenance, skills and system productivity.
View details