Brokk remote mining equipment: safety and brow control insights for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

First reported on Australian Mining
30 Second Briefing
Brokk is promoting remote-controlled demolition robots for underground mining, positioning its 1–11‑tonne class machines as alternatives to conventional excavators and handheld breakers in stopes, crusher chambers and drawpoints. The electric-powered units use tethered or radio control to keep operators tens of metres from brow faces, brow cleaning and oversize reduction, and can carry hydraulic hammers, drum cutters and scabblers on compact carriers designed for low headings. For geotechnical and production teams, the key shift is moving personnel out of unsupported ground while still performing scaling, secondary breakage and rehabilitation in confined, high‑risk zones.
Technical Brief
- Brokk carriers are fully electric, eliminating diesel particulates and exhaust heat in confined headings.
- Machines are designed to be transported in mine cages or utility vehicles, then quickly reassembled underground.
- Compact undercarriages and boom geometries allow operation in low backs and narrow drives without re‑profiling.
- Radio and tethered control options are offered, allowing operation from refuges or control rooms where available.
- Standard quick‑coupler interfaces enable rapid tool changes, reducing exposure time near brows during task transitions.
- Remote operation reduces whole‑body vibration and hand–arm vibration exposure compared with hand‑held pneumatic tools.
- Removing operators from immediate faces materially reduces risk from flyrock, sudden falls of ground and rockbursts.
- Wider adoption of such robots in mining could drive updates to site isolation, exclusion‑zone and permit‑to‑work procedures.
Our Take
Safety-tagged product pieces in our database increasingly feature remote or autonomous systems, signalling that OEMs like Brokk are now framing equipment launches around risk reduction rather than just productivity gains.
Australia-focused mining coverage shows a strong clustering around underground and confined-space hazards, so remote operation offerings are likely to see faster uptake there than in open-pit–dominated jurisdictions.
With no specific commodity attached, Brokk’s remote equipment is positioned as ‘infrastructure-agnostic’ plant, which tends to be procured at corporate or contractor fleet level rather than tied to a single mine, smoothing utilisation across multiple Australian sites.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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