AUTONOMOUS HAULAGE radar. Karefjard:“ We ticked all the boxes with a mix of sensors, and we use them together with sensor fusion where it makes sense. So, for example, LiDARs are really great for mining applications as we get high accuracy on ranging data which is very important for that environment. But it has low semantic information density. And that’ s where cameras come in. Radar is great for challenging climatic conditions and as a support to the other sensors.”
The Volvo FH truck has LiDAR and radar front and back, plus a number of cameras and an IMU. Currently Ouster LiDARs are used though the system could work with other supplier options if needed.
Similar to established AHS offerings, with Autona / earth the excavator or wheel loader operator brings the truck in, loads it and then kicks it out onto its autonomous route again. The autonomous truck calculates a path to the loading point indicated by the excavator or loader operator. To date there are no plans to automate excavators, though Volvo does have active teleoperation programs.
Where is Autona / earth being commercially used today? In addition to Bronnoy Kalk, Boliden recently used it on Volvo FH trucks for rock transport from an onsite quarry at Garpenberg to raise the height of the tailings dam wall. In total, close to 700,000 t of rock fill material were transported autonomously, and Volvo’ s autonomous haulage system ran more than 11,000 transport cycles covering 56,000 km. The project has proven that Autona / earth is very productive in an active operational mining environment, which is actually quite complex.
At Bronnoy Kalk the trucks operate in quite a distinct AOZ – but for the latest Autona / earth system, mixed autonomous and non-autonomous traffic is possible, which was a big step forward. Staaf:“ Mixed traffic capabilities are really needed today as a requirement for maximising operational efficiency. It depends to some extent how many shifts you run and what the shift setup is, but if you start to go towards 24 / 7 operations when there’ s no production downtime to maintain roads and equipment, for example, you need to be able to have contractor and road maintenance vehicles integrated with the autonomous haulage trucks.”
Thanks for its multiple sensors especially smart cameras in conjunction with AI, Autona / earth also offers a degree of onboard intelligence where the trucks can recognise obstacles or other vehicles and already for some specific use cases are able to also calculate a new route around them.
LinkOA and advancing surface mining automation
Over the past four years, Epiroc’ s LinkOA for Haulage has been operating successfully in one of the world’ s largest and most complex mining environments. Diederik Lugtigheid, General Manager, Surface Automation at Epiroc told IM:“ This deployment has provided the time, scale, and operational diversity required to mature the platform into a highly reliable and proven AHS solution. The success of LinkOA for Haulage has been built on a close partnership between Epiroc and Hancock Iron Ore, with both organisations contributing to the evolution of the system through real-world operational experience. It is important to highlight that LinkOA for Haulage is not a prototype and our operations are not a pilot or test, it is a proven solution that can operate at small and large scale operations, safely, productively and reliably – as has been shown by the production statistics we have accumulated over the years at our flagship operation at Hancock Iron Ore’ s Roy Hill mine.”
He adds while the focus remains firmly