WORLD PROSPECTS
Sandvik AutoMine open-pit drilling automation offering
Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology is taking
its underground automated drilling expertise
to the surface with the release of AutoMine ®
Surface Drilling. A leader in mining automation,
Sandvik has for a number of years been helping
mining companies across the world improve
productivity and increase safety with the use of its
intelligent AutoMine systems for trucks, LHDs and
underground drill rigs. Even so, the
commercialisation of the AutoMine Surface Drilling
system marks an important milestone for the
company in surface mining automation, it said.
The system is designed to meet customer’s
challenges and maximise productivity and safety
while increasing drilling efficiency. It enables mines
to operate multiple Sandvik iSeries drill rigs from a
remote control room miles away.
AutoMine Surface Drilling is available for
Pantera™ DP1100i, Pantera DP1500i and
Leopard™ DI650i rigs as well as Sandvik DR412i
and DR416i blasthole drill rigs. It will be available
for the recently released DR410i in the December
quarter, the company added.
“This game-changing technology is the most
Hitachi Construction Machinery (HCM) is
looking at trialling autonomous ultra-large
hydraulic excavators at an Australia mine
site as part of a series of verification tests. The
tests, set to begin from the start of the 2021
financial year (from April 1, 2021), are geared
towards improving future mining site safety and
productivity, HCM said.
“The remote controlled ultra-large hydraulic
excavator will be developed in order to improve the
working environment and ensure the safety of
operators,” the company stated. “This excavator
will be equipped with operator support systems,
such as a collision avoidance system with other
mining equipment, to ensure the same level of
operability as with the operator on board the
machinery.”
Following the initial development, some part of
the excavation and loading operation will be
automated to allow a single remote operator to
operate multiple ultra-large hydraulic excavators,
the company said.
“The incremental development will
eventually realise the ultra-large hydraulic
excavators with autonomous operation
features,” HCM said.
The remote control, driving support system
for manned excavators and autonomous
operation features are all retrofittable onto the
EX-7 series of ultra-large hydraulic excavators
to enable mining site customers to use the
equipment they currently operate, while
supporting autonomous operation at mining
sites in the future, HCM said.
The company explains: “Mining resources
including iron ore and copper sustain the
activities of global industries, and the sites
advanced commercialised
autonomous fleet system in
the world enabling
customers to reap the
benefits of an autonomous
drilling cycle,” Riku Pulli,
Vice President Automation at
Sandvik Mining and Rock
Technology, said.
Like the AutoMine
Underground solution,
AutoMine Surface Drilling
dramatically improves the
working conditions and
immediate safety of the
operator while keeping mine
personnel out of hazardous areas, Sandvik said.
This reduces the operator’s exposure to noise, dust,
and vibration and the hazard of working close to
high walls.
Automated on-board functions enable iSeries
rigs to work autonomously while the operator
monitors at fleet level. Automated drill operation,
accurate rig control and positioning increase the
which mine these resources are required to operate
in a stable manner 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
“In contrast, the operators of ultra-large
hydraulic excavators are required to repeatedly
perform complex operations for a long period of
time while paying attention to avoid collision with
surrounding equipment and the stability of the
vehicle, in order to excavate and load mining
resources in an efficient manner.”
Because the safety and productivity of ultralarge
hydraulic excavator operation largely depends
on the operator’s skill and experience, building a
production system that does not depend on these
skills and reduces the operator’s workload are
important issues at mining sites, it said.
Such developments have been coming from the
group considering the company entered the mining
machinery business in the late 1970s, and has
made leaps in tele-remote operations of excavators
within other sectors.
For example, the company used a remotecontrolled
unmanned excavator to advance the
drilling quality and the overall excavation efficiency,
according to Sandvik, thus ensuring higher
productivity for the mine.
“We look forward to working closely together
with our customers to automate drilling operations
and unlock the full potential of AutoMine Surface
Drilling,” Pulli said.
www.rocktechnology.sandvik
Hitachi first of majors to roll out autonomous mining shovels
development of technologies in the reconstruction
work at Mount Unzen Fugen-dake volcanic eruption
in 1992. In 2013, it also led the industry by
advancing the development of technologies for
long-distance remote control by remotely operating
a hydraulic excavator located in the Urahoro test
site, Hokkaido, over an internet connection from
approximately 800 km away in Tsuchiura City,
Ibaraki Prefecture.
“Now, we have decided to begin verification
tests at an actual mining site to advance the
development of autonomous driving for ultra-large
hydraulic excavators, reflecting the needs of
customers,” it said.
The autonomous operation for ultra-large
hydraulic excavators can be deployed as a
standalone system, or as a part of fleet
management system (FMS), such as the Fleet
Control from Wenco International Mining Systems,
a HCM subsidiary with a solid implementation track
record at large-scale mines.
“Our goal is to balance a high degree of safety
and productivity by having autonomous
operation through sharing the information
among the autonomous ultra-large hydraulic
excavators, dump trucks and other
equipment,” the company said.
Because it is difficult to assess the
conditions around the vehicle and the
inclination of the vehicle during remote
control compared with a manned operation,
the actual machinery will be equipped with a
collision avoidance system and a vehicle
stability monitoring system to reduce the
burden on the operator performing the remote
control during the verification tests, HCM said.
www.hitachicm.com
4 International Mining | JULY/AUGUST 2020