IM 2020 July/August 20 | Page 6

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