ASTANA — The Astana Hub International Technopark, made up of IT startups, presented a unique robotics complex — a robot dog — designed to improve safety in Kazakhstan’s mines. The dog specializes in inspecting mines and detecting possible gas leaks, Kazinform reported on December 24.

Photo credit: Soltan Zheksenbekov/Kazinform.

The robot was created by the development and innovation department of the Almaty branch of the autonomous cluster fund Park of Innovative Technologies.

“Every year, a significant number of workers die at enterprises in Kazakhstan, either due to gas leaks in mines or gas explosions. The latter occur due to untimely response to gas leaks. Thus, bypassing mines, eliminating people and the human factor from these life-threatening situations, allows us to prevent emergency situations and ensure safety at the workplace,” explained Darina Mamyrova, head of the department.

The robot is equipped with a 360-degree camera, a thermal camera and a Kazakh-designed gas analyzer. It can operate both autonomously and manually.

“As the robot moves through the mine, whether in autonomous or manual mode, the gas analyzer collects data on the condition and quality of the air. If there are abnormal levels of carbon dioxide or oxygen, it automatically sends an alert to the control center beyond the mine. So the dispatcher can quickly react to this situation and evacuate workers,” Mamyrova added.

In October last year, an explosion occurred at the Kostenko mine in the Karagandy region, which claimed the lives of 46 miners. The robot has already been tested at the Nurkazgan mine of the Kazakhmys company.