Hexagon’s Mining division and Montana Technological University entered a mid-December 2025 agreement that gives the Tucson-based technology firm year-round access to the university’s Underground Mine Education Center in Butte, Montana. The partnership enables testing and refinement of collision-avoidance, operator-protection, and other safety platforms in a full-scale simulated mine.
The collaboration places Hexagon engineers alongside Montana Tech faculty and students inside a three-dimensional training drift equipped with specialized mining gear, effectively extending the company’s R&D program. By combining Hexagon’s sensor-fusion expertise with UMEC’s realistic tunnels and equipment, the partners aim to shorten development cycles and move life-saving tools into commercial mines faster.
Montana Tech officials highlight new learning opportunities. Students in mining and metallurgical programs can now observe Hexagon’s prototype tests, collect data, and contribute to iterative engineering—experience typically available only inside active mines with limited space for learners. For the company, this academic pipeline offers access to a future workforce already familiar with its technology stack, providing a potential recruiting advantage.
According to Hexagon, the deal “accelerates development through full-scale underground simulation while also supporting student education and industry-academic collaboration” (news release). The company confirmed it has “secured access to Montana Technological University’s Underground Mine Education Center (UMEC), including its facilities and specialised mining equipment,” an arrangement first reported by the geotechnical outlet Geo-Mechanics (industry report).
What’s Inside UMEC
Cut more than 100 feet below the campus rim, UMEC features multiple intersecting drifts, ore passes, and vertical raises that replicate the cramped headings, blind corners, and variable lighting of deep-level operations. The site houses battery-electric loaders, a narrow-vein jumbo, and a dedicated control room wired for high-bandwidth data capture. That infrastructure lets Hexagon run controlled collision scenarios between mobile machines and simulate ventilation or visibility changes that affect sensor performance.
Dave Goddard, president of Hexagon’s Mining division, emphasized the importance of realistic geometry. “Laboratory benches can’t reproduce a decline heading with zero line-of-sight,” he said. “UMEC gives us the dark, dusty, complex environment we need to prove out radar, LiDAR and computer-vision algorithms before we put them in a live mine.”
Why the Timing Matters
Commercial operators are pursuing deeper ore bodies in copper, nickel, and gold. Greater depth brings narrower tunnels, more equipment congestion, and reduced radio penetration—all factors that elevate accident risk. Global regulators are beginning to codify collision-avoidance performance standards, and suppliers able to validate systems ahead of time stand to capture market share when new rules take effect.
Hexagon already sells fatigue monitoring and surface-mine object detection, but underground operations present distinct challenges. Equipment tends to be smaller, speeds lower, and reflective surfaces fewer, making it harder for sensors to distinguish personnel from rock backs or pillar walls. The partnership enables engineers to refine both hardware layouts and machine-learning models without the downtime constraints of a revenue-generating mine.
How the Testing Works
Engineers will mount sensor arrays on the center’s LHDs and jumbos, then run repeat cycles while students log miss-distance and false-positive data. Because UMEC is wholly owned by the university, teams can halt operations, reposition gear, or flood specific headings with dust to test worst-case scenarios—conditions infeasible at a production site. Results feed directly into Hexagon’s development sprints, reducing typical prototype iteration time.
Beyond collision avoidance, the program will examine operator-assistance modules such as auto-braking in blind intersections, personnel-tracking tags integrated with ventilation controls, and augmented reality overlays for maintenance crews. All findings pass through Montana Tech’s Institutional Review Board before publication, protecting proprietary elements while allowing peer-reviewed safety insights to reach the broader industry.
Education Dividend
For Montana Tech, the partnership strengthens the experiential component of its ABET-accredited mining curriculum. Senior-year capstone teams can now design experiments around live industrial prototypes, bolstering grant applications and attracting students interested in hands-on exposure to autonomy and advanced analytics. Faculty members across mining, electrical, and computer science departments will co-author technical papers, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration.
The university also plans to enhance its professional-development offerings. Short-format programs for mine managers and underground supervisors will incorporate Hexagon’s test data, allowing participants to evaluate sensor performance metrics that reflect their own operations. That knowledge transfer benefits the company: early adopter clients can visit UMEC for demonstrations and operator training before installing systems at their sites.
Commercial Pathway
Once prototypes meet target metrics—distance accuracy within 10 centimeters and latency below 100 milliseconds—Hexagon plans staged rollouts at partner mines in North America, Latin America, and Australia. Each deployment will provide anonymized data to Montana Tech, sustaining a feedback cycle that improves firmware and reduces implementation hurdles.
Analysis: Shifting R&D Underground
Industry-academia partnerships are not new, but the Hexagon-Montana Tech model suggests deeper integration. Unlike many “memorandum of understanding” arrangements relying on paper collaboration, this deal embeds corporate engineers in a university-owned mine year-round, blurring the boundary between academic research and product commercialization. Comparable initiatives exist in Australia’s mining clusters, yet few U.S. programs offer a full-scale underground lab with autonomous-ready infrastructure.
The partnership may signal a broader pivot toward simulation-led validation. As artificial intelligence algorithms require vast, diverse data sets, controlled facilities such as UMEC could become essential. They enable precise replication of low-probability events—a worker emerging around a pillar, a machine reversing on a 12-percent grade—that are difficult to observe frequently enough in live operations to train models thoroughly.
For students, participation offers a clear advantage. Graduates entering the workforce already versed in sensor calibration or data-labeling protocols could accelerate technology adoption at mines hesitant to embrace autonomy, ultimately supporting safer and more efficient resource extraction.
Sources
- https://news.europawire.eu/hexagon-partners-with-montana-tech-to-accelerate-underground-safety-technology-development/eu-press-release/2025/12/15/16/32/40/166820/
- https://www.geomechanics.io/news/article/hexagonumec-collision-avoidance-jv-design-and-testing-insights-for-mine-engineers
