DIGITALISATION
Digitising mining
John Chadwick visited Sandvik’s test mine in Tampere,
Finland and reports back on its latest developments
uring the first quarter of this year
Sandvik released two significant updates
in digitisation and automation -
AutoMine ® Lite 2.0 and OptiMine Analytics ® .
D
Both offer substantial productivity and safety
gains, and more.
“AutoMine ® is the fastest underground
loading and trucking solution on the market,”
says Jarkko Ruokojärvi, Product Line Manager
Automation at Sandvik Mining and Rock
Technology. Sandvik is continually innovating to
maintain its leadership in underground automation.
The award-winning AutoMine product family
from Sandvik continues to evolve. The latest
release of AutoMine Lite 2.0 includes both
consistent high-speed automated production
missions and smart tele-operation capabilities
for dynamic mining operations. As a combined
package, the new AutoMine Lite 2.0 is a unique
solution for integrated autonomy and advanced
remote control of underground LHDs and trucks.
It is a powerful tool to take advantage of full
equipment performance through automation,
and delivers substantial benefits including
increased productivity, improved safety and cost
efficiency. LHD or truck production cycles can be
automated with autonomous tramming and
dumping as well as using Sandvik’s automatic
bucket loading assistant functionality.
Automated missions with AutoMine Lite are
particularly suitable for mines requiring repeatable
and consistently high performance, such as those
using sub-level open stoping, sub-level caving,
transfer levels or individual block caving drives. In
addition to the optimised route-based automation,
intelligent tele-operation is now an integral part of
the AutoMine Lite 2.0 product, enabling also
automatic steering without pre-defined paths. This
integrated solution expands the range of ideal
8 International Mining | MAY 2018
mining applications to continuously changing
mining environments, such as applications with
small stopes or mine development.
“The combination of automation and smart
tele-operation capabilities means greater
flexibility, enabling customers to use the most
efficient operating mode in each production
area or even both modes in sections of the same
production cycle. It is also easy for the operator
to take full advantage of the new features in the
system. Switching operating modes – from
automation to smart assisted teleoperation and
vice versa – is simply done by pressing a
button,” explains Ruokojärvi.
AutoMine Lite provides extra productive
hours each day by allowing the continued
operation of machines during blast clearance
Sandvik has been working with customers on
mine automation and remote monitoring of
machines for more than 20 years
times. Additionally, equipment utilisation is
increased as operators can hand over between
shifts much faster without the need to locate
and travel to the equipment. Another advantage
is that AutoMine Lite significantly extends the
productive life of equipment, as the machine
runs optimally, reducing wear and tear and
maintenance costs. The system is designed to a
high level of safety and eliminates operator
exposure to potential hazards in underground
environments.
With the new AutoMine Lite 2.0, Sandvik
continues to drive the evolution of underground
equipment automation. The solution is built on
the proven AutoMine platform and can also be
easily expanded to AutoMine Multi-Lite, which
enables each system operator to simultaneously
control multiple loaders or trucks and achieve
even more significant value.
There are in fact four AutoMine underground
options available. AutoMine Tele-Remote is the
entry-level package to the AutoMine offering. It
is a solution for smart tele-operation. With
Multi-Lite each piece of equipment completes
automated missions in its own dedicated
production area. The solution provides a
powerful way to take advantage of the full
machine performance through automation.
The largest option is AutoMine Fleet, a highly
advanced automation system for a fleet of
Sandvik LHDs and trucks sharing the same
automated production area. It provides
automatic mission control and automatic traffic
management for the equipment fleet, while
system operators remotely supervise the
process.
Hecla's Greens Creek was the first US underground mine to start using the automated loading
technology. “Greens Creek commissioned t he AutoMine system in January 2017,” explained Keith
Malone, VP and General Manager of the mine. "The start-up was flawless as Sandvik did a great job
commissioning and training our engineers and miners to operate the system. We have been able to
increase mucking time by operating the AutoMine loader between shifts when personnel cannot be
underground due to blasting activities. As we add wireless communication into additional work areas
and a second or third remote loader is added to the fleet, we expect further gains will be realised.”