IntelliShot™ - The next wave of innovation

Innovation is key to ensuring continuing market relevance and customer satisfaction. With that in mind, AECI Mining Explosives, a leading international manufacturer and supplier of explosives, has developed a state-of-the-art solution which is perfectly suited to cater for the blasting needs of the global surface mining industry.

Forming part of AECI Mining Explosives' IntelliBlast™ value proposition, IntelliShot™ has been purposefully designed to allow our customers to improve their balance sheets and pursue cash preservation by facilitating the delivery of optimised blasting outcomes.

IntelliShot™ has revolutionised the blasting industry by ensuring consistent and efficient blasting results through the use of precision electronic initiation. This in itself has various benefits to customers such as reductions in blasting delays and improved uniformity of fragmentation whilst ensuring uncompromised safety at all times.

“IntelliShot™ merges world-class advanced technologies with user-friendly interfaces, thus making complex blasting simple, fast and accurate. The system is designed and engineered in collaboration with our technical partner DetNet™, with manufacturing and production located across the globe where centres of excellence exist,” explains Simon Tose, Global Mining Optimisation Manager at AECI Mining Explosives.

IntelliShot® has revolutionised the blasting industry by ensuring consistent and efficient blasting, through the use of electronic initiation techniques. This in itself has delivered multiple benefits to customers, including; a reduction in blasting delays, uniform rock fragmentation, management of blasting vibrations and blast data management while ensuring uncompromised safety at all times.

The IntelliShot™ system is comprised of an electronic detonator, the Commander (the control device), a CE4 tagger (an input device of which up to 10 can be used) and a unique, proprietary, software interface - ViewShot™ 3D.The Intellishot™ System thus ensures that any blast, no matter how complicated, is easily prepared and fired successfully; on time, every time.

“By utilising the latest technology and techniques, we have managed to significantly enhance the system characteristics. A primary consideration was usability and, to enhance this, we have dramatically reduced the weight of the control device, the Commander, from the previous generation of devices. This is both noteworthy and important as it is usual to require a minimum of two boxes on site, one to control the system on the bench and the other to fire remotely from a point of safety. With the older generation of control devices, weight and size ensured that the effort required to move and deploy these pieces of equipment was substantial.With IntelliShot®, even though two Commanders are still required for remote firing, the weight saving and advanced design is such that they are easily portable by a single person when packed into their carry case.”

The IntelliShot™ system has the capability to fire up to 16 000 detonators in a single blast and uses encrypted radio frequencies to establish a blasting network, between multiple Commanders, which can stretch over several kilometres. IntelliShot™ is suitable for any application and, in the larger networked configuration, particularly to large surface blasting operations where the requirements may vary from simple line blasting through to complex designs requiring multiple decking on several synchronised box cuts and/or benches.

The IntelliShot® Detonator is a fully programmable, electronic delay, detonator suitable for all types of blasting operations and builds on the remarkable safety principles inherent in the DigiShot™/DigiShot™ Plus range of electronic detonators, currently supplied by DetNet and AECI Mining Explosives. These safety principles, and other design considerations, benefit from over 30 years of electronic detonator learning and experience.This has resulted in a design that, in addition to the safety considerations, is resistant to electromagnetic pulses, static electricity and both shock and pressure waves.

With a completely redesigned Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), the IntelliShot® Detonator boasts 15 times more memory than its predecessor.“With the extra memory we can save critical information such as user IDs, delay times, GPS co-ordinates, length of down-hole wore and additional blast information such as the date and time of tagging.” says Tose.

Through using inherently safe devices to communicate with the detonators, as well as the superior communication abilities designed into the system, the predictability in performance and success of initiation of each detonator is greatly enhanced.This leads to greater consistency in blasting results and dramatically reduces the chance of adverse blasting incidents such as vibration and fly-rock.Tose explains that not only will this approach save precious time for our clients; it will also have a much larger benefit to local communities that are encroaching on mines. “By making use of all the technology we can formulate exactly how much blast material is needed to get the job done whilst not placing the community in harm’s way,” concludes Tose.

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