Interesting article online today in The Australian, Mining bonanza drives robot boom.

I remember there used to be some short documentaries on TV (long time ago) where the CSIRO would show of some of it's research. I remember seeing a story once about underground autonomous vehicles - in the short documentary they had unmanned machines navigating through 'tents' that simulated the walls underground. If my memory is correct, then maybe this is one of the items that CSIRO is claiming as it's "robotic mining plans first hashed out in the early 1990s" .

Doing a Google search for 'CSIRO robot mining' uncovers 2 articles written in 2000 on CSIRO's work:

1. May 04 , 2000 Robots to invade our mines, and
2. Sep 04 , 2000 Robots make mines safer.

In the first article it says "Within five years, robots will operate large parts of Australia's underground mining industry, CSIRO's deputy chief executive for minerals and energy, Dr Bruce Hobbs said today." Well maybe now the mining companies have plenty of money things may move a little quicker - good for Australian Robotic R&D.