THE LEADER VOLUME 18 • NUMBER 7
Editorial Director Paul Moore BSc ( Hons ), MSc Email : paul @ im-mining . com
Editor Daniel Gleeson BA ( Hons ) Email : daniel @ im-mining . com
Advertising Sales Phil Playle Email : phil @ im-mining . com + 44 ( 0 ) 1442 870 829
Publishing Assistant Kate Corley Email : kate @ im-mining . com
Accounts Manager Nicola Shukla nicolas @ im-mining . com
Marketing Assistant Joanna English BA ( Hons ) jo @ im-mining . com
Circulation Assistant Jane Alter circulation @ im-mining . com
Design and Production Trevor Sheldon Email : sheldonmann @ gmail . com
Website www . im-mining . com
Annual Subscription Enquiries Emma Smith Email : emma @ im-mining . com
Annual Subscription UK and Europe £ 160 , € 230 Rest of the world US $ 270
International Mining ( ISSN No : 1747-146X ) is published monthly by Team Publishing Ltd , GBR and is distributed in the USA by Asendia USA , 17B South Middlesex Avenue , Monroe NJ 08831 and additional mailing offices . Periodicals postage paid at New Brunswick NJ . POSTMASTER : send address changes to International Mining , 17B South Middlesex Avenue , Monroe NJ 08831
Printed by The Manson Group , St Albans , UK
© Team Publishing Ltd 2023 ISSN 1747 -146X
IM uses , as preference , SI units throughout , so , for example , all tonnes are metric unless otherwise stated . All dollars are US unless otherwise stated
Contractor AHS
The autonomous haulage sector is continuing to heat up with a new agnostic solution set to be launched by U & M Mineração e Construção S / A and Hexagon ’ s Mining division .
U & M , as the largest native open-pit mining contractor in the Americas and one increasingly focused on sustainability , told IM at the recent HxGN LIVE Global 2023 in Las Vegas that it was about to embark on a major autonomous haulage project that could prove transformational for all sizes of mine sites across the globe .
The company has been busily working on an inhouse Autonomous Haulage System ( AHS ) for several years , enlisting the help of Hexagon ’ s Mining division back in 2020 to ensure what it delivered to the market was a commercial proposition with widescale applicability .
Now the companies are ready to deploy their combined OEM-agnostic AHS solution at a mine in Brazil , starting this month , as part of a plan to bring two AHS-enabled retrofitted Caterpillar 777 trucks to the operation .
The collaboration is seeing U & M carry out all mechanical changes to the 100-ton-class payload trucks to make them automation-ready without disturbing the OEM system . The contractor is also in charge of the navigation system and software that the trucks will run on – the ‘ autonomous driver ’ as it could be termed .
Hexagon , for its part , provides the HxGN Autonomous Mining Mission Manager Solution to optimise the movement of autonomous and nonautonomous vehicles , and mine production activities through one interface ; the World Perception solution to enable object detection , operator vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-person awareness ; and some additional on-board infrastructure – such as sensors and an antenna .
This , according to the companies , makes for an autonomous contractor solution that can be rolled out anywhere in the world .
“ The first project may involve Cat 777s , but what we are creating is a scalable platform that can be used on any truck ,” Mauricio Casara , Commercial Director at U & M , told IM . “ We are looking to improve on the legacy AHS solutions by making automation available to any size of mine with any type of trucks .”
As part of the company ’ s R & D work to this point , it has also retrofitted an autonomous solution on a Komatsu 730E , with that truck running at its proving grounds in Brazil .
Interestingly for this proof of concept involving the two Cat 777s , the plan is to enable the trucks to interact with both autonomous and manned vehicles in the haulage cycle from the off : an interaction that the traditional AHS providers have only just started to work on after more than a decade of industry deployments .
This is just one of the hurdles the solution will overcome , according to Andrew Crose , Vice President , Autonomous Mining , Hexagon ’ s Mining division .
“ The world perception sensor stack that we have on board these machines will allow us to distinguish between trucks , light vehicles , berms , people and many other objects ,” he said . “ By leveraging this , we can ensure the trucks operate as safely as possible while being as productive as possible . That is key to achieving buy-in from all stakeholders involved .”
While the official partnership for this project was not signed until 2020 , U & M has been utilising the GNSS positioning smarts of Hexagon – through the NovAtel business it acquired – for many more years . This same GNSS solution is being leveraged in the two-strong autonomous truck trial along with V2X , 4D Radars , ultra-wideband time-of-flight systems and more .
Crose added : “ It ’ s worth mentioning that around 60 % of the autonomous machines running in the field have some Hexagon solution on them . We are sometimes providing the positioning , world perception , fleet and mission management , onboard autonomy and by-wire ; all part of our interoperable strategy .”
Hexagon ’ s Mining division has been making encouraging noises about entering the AHS space in recent months , telling IM in May that “ a complete AHS system ” was in development .
At HxGN LIVE Global 2023 , it also confirmed it was enhancing its collaboration with Canada-based tele-remote technology leader HARD-LINE , building on a previous distribution agreement the two companies announced back in September 2021 . At the event , Rob Daw , Chief Innovation Officer at Hexagon ’ s Mining division , said : “ We are strengthening that partnership with HARD-LINE to enhance what the tele-remote solution can do and bring it together into the wider autonomy offering we have within Hexagon ’ s Mining division .”
While the U & M initiative is inevitably going to pique the interest of those companies in charge of running these autonomous trucks , the contractor said it has no plans to compete with the likes of Caterpillar and Komatsu when it comes to manufacturing automation-ready trucks .
“ There are so many existing trucks out in the field that our clients are running ; all of which can be retrofitted with the solution we are working on ,” Casara said . “ The whole industry talks about sustainability and how to mine sustainably , but the sustainable solution to achieving autonomous operations is not to build brand new trucks and equip them for automation ; it is to retrofit the smarts onto them to enable that automation .
“ This is the sustainable way to roll out the automation needed across the sector to achieve mining companies ’ productivity and decarbonisation goals .”
Daniel Gleeson Editor daniel @ im-mining . com
JULY 2023 | International Mining 3