Research

A 4,200-square-foot bunker-style Mine Safety Laboratory provides a physical test environment for underground safety, robotics, and autonomous-system research. The multi-level facility incorporates variable surface roughness and room-and-pillar configurations representative of underground mine environments. It supports controlled evaluation of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), sensing platforms, and navigation algorithms under confined and safety-critical conditions. A digital twin of the bunker-style facility provides a synchronized virtual representation of the laboratory geometry, environmental conditions, and sensor systems. This physical–virtual integration enables scalable experimentation in autonomous navigation, human–robot interaction, sensor evaluation, and safety-system performance. It also allows rapid testing of operational and emergency scenarios, supporting training and decision-support research without requiring repeated physical reconfiguration of the laboratory.

Virtual and Augmented Reality are also central research capabilities. Unity-based environments are integrated with CAD models, haptic interfaces, and omnidirectional treadmills to support mine navigation, rescue training, emergency response, and human–machine interaction studies. Research also examines physiological and cognitive responses to immersive environments, including cybersickness and other factors that can affect VR effectiveness in safety-critical applications. Together, these resources provide an integrated experimental environment in which physical facilities, autonomous platforms, sensing technologies, digital twins, and immersive simulation can be evaluated within a unified framework. The laboratory serves as an interdisciplinary testbed for advancing underground mine safety, autonomous monitoring, human–machine interaction, and emergency-response technologies.