The industrial roads are part of the critical infrastructure of Los Pelambres, since they allow the transport of ore, materials and supplies, as well as the movement of people and equipment necessary for the mining operation. Therefore, it is necessary to define and implement a dust suppression watering strategy to control particulate emissions to protect human health and comply with current environmental regulations. At present, Los Pelambres has both an on-line real-time monitoring system for the concentration of PM10 on its industrial roads and a fleet of water trucks to irrigate the sectors defined in the watering programme, which is carried out manually, with a minimal analysis of available historical data and a qualitative consideration of other relevant variables such as environmental and/or operational conditions, among others.

Technological solutions are required to generate an industrial road watering programme based on artificial intelligence, integrating different sources of available information such as: air quality monitoring, weather stations, production schedules, among others, with the aim of ensuring air quality and optimising the required water consumption.

• Integration with all information sources available in AMSA. A contractor is currently developing the roadside pollution maps.
• Advanced analytics (predictive and/or prescriptive) must be implemented in real time on all the data collected, proposing different strategies and watering programmes.
• Develop a technological interface to provide graphical information, calculation of indicators and recommendations to support real-time decision making.
• The system should be operated remotely, with minimum presence of workers in the area.
• The proposed solutions ideally should have a minimal carbon footprint, e.g. including electric mobility.
• It must have a technological readiness level equal to or higher than TRL4 (advanced conceptual development).
• Meet Los Pelambres health, safety and environmental standards.

Dust measurement with Dust Mate equipment.

• Consultancy and process engineering studies
• Proposals for air quality monitoring only.

• Reduce water consumption for watering industrial roads.
• Increase road maintenance productivity
• Monitor road watering remotely.
• Ensure compliance with environmental legislation.

• Water consumption, (m3/day).
• PM10 concentration, (µg/m3N).
• Dispatch frequency, (number of trucks/day).