36Krs first Boray Technology completed tens of millions of RMB in Pre-A round financing and will continue to expand its automated transportation business in mining areas

Mines are currently one of the most ideal deployment scenarios for unmanned transportation.

36Kr has learned that Shanghai Boonray Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Boonray Technology"), a provider of machine intelligence and data service solutions, has secured tens of millions of RMB in Pre-A funding from investors including Tuojin Capital and 23seed. Company founder Hu Xinyi told 36Kr that this round of funding will primarily be used to further advance the implementation of ubiquitous robotics technology in "smart mines."

Founded in 2015, Boonray Technology is a domestic company specializing in the research and development of ubiquitous robotics technology. It focuses on researching the interconnection of multiple machines, enabling intelligent cluster operations, and mining the value of the data generated by this interconnection. As a result, Boonray Technology has developed an intelligent robotics operation platform encompassing functional modules such as autonomous driving, intelligent data collection, and cloud-based big data intelligent analysis. Boonray Technology is committed to providing intelligent operational solutions for traditional industries through robotics, AI, and IoT technologies. Already commercially deployed in photovoltaic power plants with unmanned intelligent operation and maintenance, and automated transportation within mines, Boonray Technology has been successfully deployed.

Taking photovoltaic power station operation and maintenance as an example, Boonray Technology has identified the following pain points in traditional PV power station operations and maintenance:

In the later stages of operation and maintenance, manual inspections are often the sole method. Due to the large area covered by photovoltaic panels, manual inspections are inefficient, labor-intensive, and opaque. Furthermore, identifying potential hazards and faults relies heavily on the inspector's experience.

Some power stations also use drones for inspections, but conventional drone inspections are prone to inaccurate thermal imaging data and the inability to accurately locate faults. Furthermore, these drone inspections place high demands on drone route planning and operator expertise.

To address these issues, Boonray Technology provides customers with an integrated solution encompassing hardware, software, and services. Currently, the solution primarily focuses on private deployments and has accumulated nearly 30 clients in the industry.

As a partner of DJI for industrial applications, Boonray Technology has equipped drones with connected automatic control modules and onboard intelligent modules based on application needs. This enables remote control, autonomous flight, automatic data collection, and automatic charging when using a drone landing pad. This hardware also enhances the drone's data collection, transmission, and processing capabilities.

To complement the hardware, Boonray Technology has developed a dedicated app for drone flight control, enabling route planning, flight area restrictions, cloud connectivity, and account control. Combining image processing and artificial intelligence technologies, Boonray Technology has also developed an intelligent photovoltaic defect recognition application. This application, combined with the Boonray Cloud processing platform, allows drones to quickly identify photovoltaic panel defects using infrared light and, in conjunction with visible light data, generate detailed photovoltaic defect reports using geolocation.

Based on this foundation, Boonray Technology has expanded its business into more complex automated transportation scenarios within mines. "Mine transportation scenarios are relatively closed, with fixed and controllable routes. Furthermore, mineral transportation is tedious, the working environment is poor, and there are risks such as rollovers. This type of manual work deserves to be replaced," said Hu Xinyi.

As with photovoltaic applications, Boonray Technology provides a comprehensive suite of hardware and software services. Simply put, Boonray Technology's "smart mine" solution can be divided into two parts: "aboveground" and "underground." In the "aboveground" phase, drones are used to scan the entire mining area, and high-precision maps are constructed using 3D modeling and other technologies. High-speed internet access is also provided for the mining area.

On the "underground" side, the first step is to retrofit traditional mining trucks. These trucks are equipped with an automotive-grade multi-camera + LiDAR fusion perception system, coupled with a high-precision self-positioning system that integrates vision, inertial navigation, and GPS/RTK. These systems, along with obstacle recognition, path planning, and feedback control algorithms running on a real-time operating system, enable autonomous driving, automatic obstacle avoidance, and automatic reversing on specific roads. They also monitor the mining truck's current position, speed, battery level, and other status information in real time.

Next, dedicated roads will be developed and a centralized control center will be built to enable intelligent monitoring and dispatching of mining dump trucks. Boonray Technology will also equip the helmets of not only mining trucks but also mining workers with positioning and connectivity devices. Their location and trajectory information will be displayed on the control center's visualization platform, enabling their deployment.

Currently, the "Smart Mine Unmanned Transportation" solution has been commercially implemented at a large mine in Luoyang, with 30 unmanned mining trucks in operation, achieving a monthly production capacity of 500,000 tons. Going forward, Boonray Technology will continue to deepen its development and implementation of "Smart Mine" scenarios.

"Unmanned mining" is a popular area for autonomous driving applications recently. 36Kr has previously reported on companies such as Huituo Intelligent, Easy Control Intelligent Driving, and Tage Intelligent Driving. Huituo Intelligent announced in July this year the completion of a nearly 100 million yuan Series A1 funding round led by SAIF Partners, with participation from Fanghe Capital and Hanergy Ventures. Easy Control Intelligent Driving announced this month a 60 million yuan angel round. Boonray Technology's approach focuses on interconnecting people, objects, and machines across the entire mining area. Its core technology is ubiquitous robotics, which enables different types of robotic components to collaborate across a network to perform services that are difficult for a single robot to accomplish.

In terms of its revenue model, Boonray Technology provides one-stop, personalized services for large enterprise clients, with fees covering a one-time fee for hardware and software, as well as annual maintenance and upgrades. In the future, it also plans to offer SaaS and HaaS products to small and medium-sized enterprises, primarily charging hardware rentals and software subscriptions.

Regarding the team, founder Hu Xinyi graduated from the Michigan pilot program at the School of Mechanical and Power Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. During her undergraduate years, she was selected for the GEARE program (Global Alliance for Engineers Research and Education) and studied abroad at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. She later earned an MBA from the China Europe International Business School and has worked for renowned Fortune 500 companies such as Bosch and Danaher, bringing her extensive experience in automation and the Industrial Internet. Co-founder and CTO Yang Yang holds a doctorate from the Robotics Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, specializing in robotics and vision. He is a recipient of the Shanghai Science and Technology First Prize. A serial entrepreneur, he previously co-founded a technology company that was acquired by a Singapore-listed group.