HIGH PROFILE
Agnostic attraction
It is a big year for ASI Mining , with the Roy Hill AHS project reaching its culmination and greater integration on the autonomy solutions side with Epiroc . Paul Moore caught up with Drew Larsen , Director of Business Development for a flavour of how far it has come and what to expect in 2022
Q How is the AHS project progressing at Roy Hill and is it fair to say this is the first project where your full autonomy vision is being realised for the first time ? A Roy Hill in many ways represents one of the most complex and all-encompassing AHS deployments in the world – it ’ s big , it ’ s one single operation and it involves lots of vehicles . Not only that , but a broad set of mining techniques are used , so it embodies the majority of autonomous haulage functionality that you could find virtually anywhere in open pit mining . It therefore really helps ASI Mining flesh out our entire AHS capability , such that most any other mid-Tier or junior miner that contracts for AHS will likely use only a subset of what has been done at Roy Hill . I would say the scale of the project has been both a blessing and a challenge . Roy Hill ’ s requirements in terms functionality , performance , safety , and reliability have been exacting and comprehensive . This includes areas such as network interaction , scalability , and cybersecurity . Initially , there were several gaps in our capabilities to achieve the overall project requirements , but where we have had gaps , we have filled most of them and will be completing those remaining requirements very shortly . We therefore don ’ t see the need for much future development of functionality to handle future autonomous haulage projects in open pit mining . That said , we will continue to press for better performance , reliability , and more value generation for mine operators .
Q Can you give some indication of where the project is today in terms of timeline to full functionality ?
A You can say that the Roy Hill AHS project had four phases – starting with a design phase , then initial deployment and testing phase in a sandbox setting ( phase 1 ), then a performance phase where we are operating a small fleet in a production environment to meet KPI targets . The last phase is expansion which involves rollout of AHS across the entire fleet . This will signal the point at which the full AHS functionality and performance has been achieved to the satisfaction of the client , and they will sign off on the expansion . For ASI Mining , we will have a complete , fully commercialised version of our AHS , at scale , that can not only meet the needs of big complex mines , but also almost any open pit operation out there . It ’ s important to emphasise that it ’ s not just about achieving the functionality and safety requirements , but also the performance around critical KPIs that indicates our system can deliver on the value proposition of AHS .
Q Would you say it is also the first major success in mining of what some would call open autonomy ? A We have always maintained that as far as interoperability goes , ASI Mining ’ s model is more open than most anything else out there in the AHS market . We have allowed and continue to allow for interoperability at the fleet management system ( FMS ) level . Roy Hill happens to use Wenco ’ s FMS and we have been able to work with them , as they are also working towards a future ISO standard for such an interface . That said , we can and are working with other FMS technology providers , leveraging open interfaces to integrate
Cat 793F truck automated with ASI technology during sandbox testing phase at Roy Hill ( courtesy Roy Hill )
dispatch information from other FMS providers into our AHS . Today , most AHS providers are tied to a single choice in FMS under a proprietary technology stack . We are excited to demonstrate interoperability and flexibility with FMS since we believe that is the direction that the mining industry wants to take . At the vehicle level , we are also highly interoperable . We announced some time ago our open compatibility with Liebherr ’ s mining trucks . They now have announced a compatibility with another provider as well , but we continue to support Liebherr ’ s mining truck open autonomy project through connectivity with their Drive by Wire layer . We continue to talk to other OEMs as well , inviting them to supply Autonomous Ready ( AR ) vehicles that are compatible with ASI ’ s Mobius – both on board hardware automation kit and our traffic management system . The Liebherr relationship continues to have great potential . A number of the world ’ s largest mines have mixed fleets from suppliers like Caterpillar , Hitachi , Liebherr and Komatsu . These mines chose those Liebherr trucks because of their performance and operating characteristics , but want to be able to apply autonomy to those units as well . Mobius can enable Liebherr autonomous trucks as part of a homogenous or mixed AHS fleet . The same applies to other OEMs as well . Look at Roy Hill , it has Hitachi EH5000 trucks but also Caterpillar 793F units . We have brought both truck fleets together under an integrated AHS as part of our overall solution . Mine sites want to be able to preserve the flexibility that a mixed fleet brings them when they apply AHS . They want an alternative to the OEM proprietary roadmap that
Drew Larsen , Director of Business Development for ASI Mining
82 International Mining | FEBRUARY 2022