Abstract: Disclosed herein are a method and system for controlling a drill rig by utilising a drill control module. A drill control module for controlling functionality of a drill rig comprises: a processor; a storage medium for storing a computer program having instructions that when executed on the processor perform the method steps of: drilling a hole by repeatedly: activating a hammer drilling mode for a predefined interval parameter, said activated hammer drilling mode causing a drill bit of said drill rig to impact a surface using a hammer drilling technique; and activating a pause interval for a predefined interval time, during which said drill bit reduces engagement with said surface.

Abstract: Disclosed herein are a control method and system. The system includes: a deactivation control; a control centre controller for storing an association between the deactivation control and a selected set of mine sites; a plurality of autonomous drill rigs, each drill rig having a drill shutdown module to disable a function of the respective drill rig upon receipt of a deactivation command; and a mine site controller associated with each mine site, each mine site controller being coupled to all autonomous drill rigs located at the respective mine site with which the mine site controller is associated. Activating the deactivation control transmits a deactivation command from the deactivation control to the control centre controller. The control centre controller forwards the deactivation command to a mine site controller associated with each mine site in the set of mine sites for distribution to all autonomous drill rigs at that mine site.