The RSV (Remote Surveying Vehicle), designed and built by James Jobling Purser, was recently deployed to undertake a 3D survey of part of the Mponeng mine, near Johannesburg in South Africa.

Mr Jobling Purser said: "We are using techniques that are more associated with the film industry and offering a global service applying them to mining problems.

"We use the robot to speed up surveys of large mines as it can survey twice as quick as doing it manually. We only use it if there is dangerous areas to access, or if we need to work quickly.

"We are the first to use this for underground mining operations even though the oil and gas industry has been using similar technology for years. We can merge our 3D survey results with CAD designs of plant and engineering structures."

The RSV was able to access areas of Mponeng — 4.1km at its deepest — too dangerous, or inaccessible to humans.

Mr Jobling Purser said: "The survey was incredibly challenging, because we had to walk about five kilometres underground with a lot of kit and temperatures of up to 40 degrees Centigrade."

Mr Jobling Purser developed the robot while a studying at Camborne School of Mines at the University of Exeter's Tremough campus, part of the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC). He is now managing director of 3DMSI, based at UCF's business incubation centre.

He conducted the survey with company's technical director — fellow Exeter at Tremough graduate – Lucas Flumm, who said: "Our attitude to new technology and specialist software has so far brought us to a very exciting position where innovative applications for laser scanning underground are continually appearing."

Mr Jobling Purser said: "The speed and accuracy of these techniques can save mining companies hundreds of thousands of pounds per contract.

"If there is a problem, the speed with which we can carry out a survey will save money on the downtime and budgets for electricians, engineers, miners, people producing the plans, teams manufacturing components amongst other things."