FLEET AUTOMATION
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particularly challenging. For that, an implementation plan is needed that
maintains the isolated requirements of AHS in a way that also minimises
negative impacts on production KPIs as AHS spreads through the operation.
That’s something we must work closely with the site to achieve. Then in
terms of planning and dispatch, ASI typically integrates with the incumbent
FMS provider. Again, our approach being FMS agnostic. We are pushing to
establish APIs with any and all FMS providers. We are developing a broad
family of FMS providers that we have interface agreements with. Our
modular architecture separates the FMS from Mobius, our traffic
management system. The FMS basically dictates the trucks assignments
and the traffic management layer (command and control) dictates how the
trucks get there and governs the rules they follow, driving behaviours etc.
When you modularise those components and separate them, that provides
flexibility to be able to leverage an incumbent FMS that is already in place
and optimised around a mine operation. Mining companies have made big
investments in their FMS systems; they’ve gone through extensive training
and optimising, so it would be a challenge for brownfield sites to replace
their FMS and go through all that additional disruption while implementing
an AHS. Today, we have a limited number of supported FMS APIs, but we do
have agreements with several global providers in place to establish
supported APIs to enable AHS under their dispatch system. As ASI becomes
more prevalent in the marketplace, and the more AHS propagates in the
market I think it will help other FMS providers & innovators beyond the
three market leaders, as mines increasingly won’t have to use the
replacement model that is common today in automation projects.
Q What about the vehicle and V2X/V2V side of things? Such as between
autonomous trucks and other non-auto vehicles? And how does ASI handle
truck and shovel interaction?
A We do need to locate and monitor all the asset positions within the
autonomous operating zone. To do that we leverage traditional low and high
precision GPS solutions, but we are also incorporating V2V and V2X
technology which helps us in dealing with redundancy and scalability. In
other words, being able to push more comms horizontally between vehicles
(as opposed to vehicle to a central server). That gives us a lot of flexibility in
terms of how we are able to scale our bandwidth requirements. We are
actively pursuing maximum use of that capability. Looking at interaction
between trucks and the manned shovel/excavator, we have the manned
operator in the shovel interacting with Mobius through a UI that gives the
operator the ability to control the truck movements in and out of the load or
dump area. In a load area, they would set the spot points and call the trucks
in, then “kick out” the trucks when fully loaded. That’s generally done with
minimal changes in the cab. We generally use joystick integrated control
buttons or a kickout switch. We offer shovel operator training for that, done
by ASI directly or through one of our partners.
Q What about your relationship with Epiroc? You are not majority owned by
them but the relationship seems to be deepening and leading to new
opportunities?
A The investment by Epiroc in ASI did multiple things. On the ASI side, it
gave us access to a global footprint of service and support resources that
gives us a local presence and level of services globally that we could have
never achieved alone, or at least it would have taken a long time. It gave
Epiroc capabilities from a technology provider in the haul truck space to be
able to field solutions that could expand and augment their business and
ambitions in mine automation. We are working closely with Epiroc and look
forward to future announcements on collaboration projects. From a project
point of view, our arrangement provides a lot of flexibility in the commercial
68 International Mining | APRIL 2020
transaction structure based on customer preferences. It’s likely in some
cases that ASI would be the prime contractor and would subcontract AHS
work to the local Epiroc customer centre either as an independent
subcontractor or as an authorised dealer. In many cases, the customer may
have a preference for the prime contract to be through Epiroc, which was
the case with the recent Roy Hill award. In that case, they contracted
directly with Epiroc locally and subcontracted the truck AHS supply to ASI
Mining. ASI remains independent, however, and our agreement preserves
flexibility for a contracting model that best meets different customer needs.
Q Does the greater uptake of LTE in open pit mining change your approach?
A We have deployed autonomy at two LTE sites now, and its proven to be a
great fit as a comms strategy to support automation. We also opted to be
agnostic when it comes to general network types used, but we do have very
specific requirements when it comes to network capability for supporting
our AHS technology. In terms of our long term strategy and roadmap, there
is somewhat of a trade-off between how much we invest in reducing our
dependency on communications infrastructure versus where we anticipate
that industry is going to get to in several years’ time, in terms of greater
bandwidth and more ubiquity across a site. We already work with the
experts in the comms field when we deploy AHS to make sure it supported
properly, and like FMS, when it comes to communication networks, our
model is to be as agnostic as possible. This is especially strategic for
brownfield mine sites who have already made major investments in
infrastructure. Therefore, we typically help customers expand that network
to support AHS rather than requiring replacement of their network setup,
again minimising disruption and cost for the customer.
Q You also have some OEM relationships in place, for example with
Liebherr, how does this business case fit into your AHS offering?
A These relationships are very important to ASI. We have a long-term
cooperation with Chilean blasting and explosives group Enaex, for example.
In trucks, Liebherr has, uniquely among the truck OEMs, been willing to
adopt an open interface with Mobius in its AHS offering. We use standard
interfacing with our OEM partners that accesses their drive by wire
capability. In fact, we can interface at several different levels in the
technology stack but essentially it goes along with our interoperability
model of being able to bring in other OEMs and provide them access to our
AHS solutions through open interfaces. Again, it drives more flexibility in
our offering. In some cases, our only option is to leverage complete ASI
retrofit kits, but when we can bring in OEMs that are willing to establish that
compatibility with ASI, we are more than happy to do so, and in fact are
actively pursuing these types of relationships with various OEMs.
Caterpillar 793D truck equipped with AHS by ASI Mining, part of a fleet
now running at Ukraine iron ore miner Ferrexpo’s Yeristovo operation