On 1 January 2026, the collaborative research project PLING – Platform-Based Integration and Use of Mining Data officially started. Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) within the EGARoh programme, the project runs for three years and has a funding volume of around €2.75 million.
A consortium of industry and science
Four consortium partners pool their expertise: TU Bergakademie Freiberg as coordinator brings its expertise in real-time resource modelling, while RWTH Aachen (institutes AMT and MRE) is responsible for the mobile sensor platform and environmental monitoring. On the industry side, Knauf Gips KG contributes operational mining experience, while Innomotics (formerly Siemens Mining) develops the scalable data platform.
The associated partners K+S and Zinnwald Lithium provide two of the three industrial use cases.
Nine work packages until 2028
The project is organised into nine work packages – from requirements analysis (WP 1) through the development of the sensor platform (WP 2) and data integration (WP 3) to the demonstration of the overall system at three real mining sites (WP 7). In the first project year, the focus lies on requirements analysis, the sensor concept, and building up the data platform.
The results are intended to feed into international standards (UNFC), to be published as an open-access online course, and to be integrated into MSc study programmes.
Why PLING?
Conventional exploration in mining is largely based on drilling and static resource models, whose spatial resolution is often insufficient for operational decisions underground. PLING transforms sensor data captured directly during extraction into high-resolution information for resource characterisation and adaptive process control – for more efficient, safer and more sustainable raw material extraction.