13 March 2025

Virtual Mines for Safer Mining Education

The MineXR project, funded by Unite! Seed Fund, develops immersive Extended Reality (XR) environments to enhance safety and practical training for mining engineering students.

The MineXR project aims to provide a safer and more engaging learning experience for future mining engineers. By developing virtual mine environments, students pursuing Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mining engineering can conduct practical training and experiments in a risk-free, immersive setting. The initiative, coordinated by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-Barcelona Tech (UPC), brings together researchers from multiple disciplines—mining, computing, pedagogy, and remote sensing—to build a shared, open-source toolkit for mining education. 

Research Focus

MineXR will develop a prototype of a virtual mining environment that simulates various aspects of mining operations, such as safety protocols, exploration, extraction, and processing. This toolkit will be available on the Metacampus platform, offering students hands-on experience without the dangers of real-life mining. The open framework will allow for future adaptation to other engineering fields that require safety training. 

Objectives

The main objective of the MineXR project is to foster interdisciplinary collaboration to develop a learning module based on Extended Reality (XR) environments that simulate real mines. This virtual environment will be used by Unite! mining departments as a complementary tool for safety and practical training. The module is designed to be open and adaptable, allowing it to be applied to other engineering fields that could also benefit from XR-based safety training.

Additionally, the project envisions future Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) programs where mining engineering students from different countries can train together in the same virtual environment. To achieve these goals, the project aims to create an immersive XR prototype simulating various aspects of mining operations, such as safety, exploration, extraction, and processing. It seeks to enhance student safety, engagement, and learning outcomes by offering practical, hands-on experience in a safe virtual setting. Furthermore, educational content, interactive modules, and assessment tools will be integrated into the XR simulations to facilitate active learning and skill development.

Lastly, MineXR aspires to democratize the use of virtual environments as learning spaces within the Unite! network by building a repository on the Metacampus platform to share educational resources and XR mining simulation modules.

Researchers and institutions

• Marc Vallbé Mumbrú, Fixed-term Academic, UPC (Coordinator) 

• Anna Barbara Gogolewska, Permanent Academic, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (WUST) 

• Marilena Cardu, Permanent Academic, Politecnico di Torino (PoliTo) 

• Johanna Pirker, Permanent Academic, TU Graz – Graz University of Technology 

• Olga Pavlova and Tetiana Hovorushchenko, Permanent Academics, Khmelnytskyi National University (Ukraine, Associated Partner) 

• Juan José Puente Sandoval, PhD Researcher, UPC 

• Jaroslaw Krysiak, Permanent Academic, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (WUST) 

This interdisciplinary project is set to revolutionize mining engineering education by enhancing safety training through cutting-edge XR technology, creating a collaborative and safe environment for future engineers across Europe.