By Dr Phillip Stothard, Dr Peter Ryan, Doug Stapleton and Professor Takeshi Kurata
Managing the mining cycle is a significant and complex challenge that may benefit from persistent virtual worlds presented as a mining metaverse.
Exploration, feasibility, planning, design, construction, operations, rehabilitation, decommissioning, and closure all present challenges to mine operators. The goal is to provide the most benefit to society through maximum resource recovery, profitability, and leaving no future negative legacy. That is, ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.1
The metaverse is not new. For example, Snow Crash, the book written by Neal Stephenson2 in 1992, presents a dystopian future, while the 1988 TV series Red Dwarf, produced by Doug Naylor (et al.)3, was set aboard a fictional mining corporation’s spaceship. Within the Red Dwarf narrative, ‘Better than life’ – a virtual world – was accessed via a headset that tapped into human consciousness, thus transporting the wearer to another location.
Figure 1. A sketch of the metaverse concept12
This fiction, except for the direct connection to human consciousness, has now mostly become reality, and virtual worlds are commonplace – even within mining. Virtual reality simulations4–11 are available that allow users to interact with a virtual world to complete some task or activity, but these need specialist skills to develop. These are precursors to the metaverse, and hardware and software have advanced significantly, making virtual worlds accessible to all. Potentially, their integration into mine operations can become more routine and applied across a broader spectrum of applications. In recent years, increased network bandwidth, and ‘always on’ devices and systems, combined with increased interest from social media companies, have enabled metaverse technologies to progress to such a point that they may profoundly impact the mining industry in the future.
Figure 2. Example mining metaverse concept12
The metaverse
The metaverse is difficult to define, but, broadly speaking, it is an infinite and persistent set of computer-generated virtual worlds accessible via a human–computer interface and controlled by the creator’s imagination, society, computer code and graphics. Importantly, it is accessible by people, agents and machines, both simultaneously and at any time. An example is shown in Figure 1. ISO13 defines the metaverse as a universal, immersive virtual world facilitated by virtual reality and augmented reality. It is a persistent and immersive simulated world experienced in the first person by simultaneous users sharing a sense of presence within a virtual location.
Considering the metaverse’s ability to provide mutual presence, from a mining industry perspective and referring to Figure 2, to suspend disbelief that a person is at location ‘A’ (say a mine site office), but can see and interact with a virtual environment at location ‘B’ (say a mining metaverse) that is a digital twin of location ‘C’ (a real mine), is a significant challenge to realise; however, if realised, it would provide a powerful capability, especially for achieving the goal of a sustainable mining operations, because it could improve communication, collaboration and understanding of the short- and long-term tasks within mining operations. A significant financial benefit also may be possible from a mining metaverse because it will allow ‘what if’ scenarios and simulations to be run in a safe and forgiving environment as part of staff education and operational risk management processes. Within a mining metaverse, what we see is what we will have (in reality). Commerce, gaming, education, training, knowledge sharing, and socialisation in very near real time are all a part, and could also be leveraged. For future fully autonomous mining operations that are very remote or not easily accessible, this could be a powerful and essential communications tool that removes people from hazardous areas and allows remote control of automated systems.
Essentially, the mining metaverse would provide a comprehensive, integrated, online communications tool that brings people together who may be remotely located offsite, or even at the same location, but remote from each other (e.g., underground or on the surface). It will thus allow people to interact to complete some activity or objective. Figure 2 shows a generalised layout of a hypothetical mining metaverse integrated into operations.
Figure 3. Mining metaverse domains with a governing foundation layer and capability pillars supporting the metaverse12
Figure 4. Example framework and governance process for producing a collaborative and sustainable mining metaverse – Domain 112
Realisation
A mining metaverse would be a persistent computer‑generated virtual world accessed via a human–computer interaction boundary layer that sits between the real world and the mining metaverse (Figure 1). The boundary layer is complex because it must access and connect to all the enabling layers or pillars that enable the metaverse to provide the experience itself. Figure 3 and 4 show eight interconnected domains (or pillars) and the numerous components within. An initial seven layers were suggested by Metamandrill.14
Importantly, each domain connects to every other and hence may be present across all domains. For example, within mining, governance inputs from AusIMM, Standards Australia and Engineers Australia would straddle not only the foundation domain, Domain 1 (Figure 3 and 4), but would extend into others, and vice versa. Everything interconnects and interdepends, and if one fails then all others will fail. Hence, without standardisation and collaboration during development, realising a mining metaverse may be unsustainable for any long-term and useful industrial application.
As mentioned, a mining metaverse would be a set of persistent ‘always on’ virtual worlds accessible by many people, agents and entities at any time (Figure 1). It may or may not represent the real world and is only limited by people’s imagination (Figure 2 and 5). Access to it would be via human–computer interfaces of varying sophistication (Figure 6). The metaverse has gained attention in recent years due to major global companies tapping into the market for head-mounted displays. Prototype metaverse platforms have emerged, claiming to provide fully immersive experiences; however, the technology maturity is unclear and access to them requires subscriptions in many cases, which may become a barrier for access. More work is required to establish maturity of the technology and which human–computer interfaces will prevail.
Metaverse experience development appears ad hoc and is not led by any formal international standard or collaboration. The international standards approach of the Web3D Consortium may be suitable for developing a mining metaverse. For mining, the key may be an industry-led initiative steered by industry professional bodies that guide commercial entities to develop interoperable systems that are open to all. The resulting mining metaverse would contain virtual worlds accessible simultaneously by many people, whether they be on site, remote, underground, or even in the future as a historical case study or replay.
The mining metaverse would be based on many underpinning domains, each of which is essential for realisation. Complexities within these domains require collaborative approaches for development and integration via standardisation. This would help to reduce risks such as cybercrime, misuse, commercial exploitation and so on, since the metaverse has many interdependent components that must interoperate. Also, it is not a trivial exercise to realise a mining metaverse sustainably within the mining industry, or any other industry for that matter. There is a need for autonomous 3D model and synthetic/virtual environment generation to streamline production, as shown in Figure 7. Artificial intelligence may provide this capability.
Figure 5. Various iterations of virtual reality simulation systems that could potentially be an access point to the mining metaverse
Figure 6. Potential methods and apparatus for accessing the mining metaverse12
Summary
A mining metaverse is an opportunity to improve mine communications and the management of the complete mining cycle. Its complexity suggests its development must be led by an industry–government research collaboration that produces a mining metaverse capability that leverages the capabilities from providers such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta, and international collaborations, such as ISO and IEEE.
Working collaboratively between such groups will allow a baseline mining metaverse to be established that meets the needs of all the mining industry stakeholders, and that can be customised and tailored to fulfil a specific mining organisation or associate group as a ‘microverse’ within the larger metaverse.
The approach of the Web3D Consortium is a powerful initiative. Building upon that work and the work of the International Standards Organisation JTC 1/SC 24 (computer graphics, image processing and environmental data representation) and Standards Australia IT-031 Modelling and Simulation Committee, would be a good pathway to follow for the development of a mining metaverse.
Developing a mining metaverse may assist with mine sustainability and improve operational outcomes, but it should be achieved via international and inter‑stakeholder collaboration.
For further information, please contact Dr Phillip Stothard at WA School of Mines: Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering (WASM-MECE), Curtin University, Kalgoorlie.
Figure 7. Need for automation12
Table 1. The foundational components, tools, user interfaces and experiences of the metaverse (modified after GlobalData16)
About the authors
Dr Phillip Stothard is Senior Lecturer Mining Engineering at WASM-MECE Curtin University, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Dr Peter Ryan is Principal Consultant (Defence Science background) at Ryan Watson Consulting, Victoria. Doug Stapleton is Information Security Specialist at Highlands Information Security Pty Ltd, Bowral, New South Wales. Professor Takeshi Kurata is Deputy Director at the Human Augmentation Research Centre, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tokyo, Japan.
References
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13 ISO, I.S.O., ‘WD Stage Information technology — Computer Graphics, image processing and environmental data representation — Metaverse Concepts, Definitions and Terminology’, in ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24/WG 10, 2023, ISO.
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16 GlobalData, ‘Metaverse becoming a reality. Highlights of the metaverse ecosystem, innovations, and what’s next’, 2022 [cited 2022 29/11/2022; Summary of what the metaverse may be.]. Available from: https://www.globaldata.com/.
