CONTRACT MINING
On AHS, it is working closely with Hexagon, for example, using smart micro radar sensors and Hexagon GNSS as well as OP Pro FMS and Mission Manager command and control – this gives Hexagon experience in the AHS market for its own agnostic autonomy kit ambitions, but does not represent competition as U & M will only be offering autonomy as a service as part of its mining contracts – it will not be automating client-owned trucks. U & M is also working with Fast2Mine, now part of Weir Group, to allow it to offer U & M’ s autonomy as a service solution as a package in tandem with its FMS and other digital solutions for mining.
On other hardware, for the hybrid truck, today U & M is working with ABB BORDLINE ® ESS LTO chemistry batteries – described by U & M as being very rugged and powerful and also very safe for its current hybrid prototype needs.
As far as the hybrid project is concerned, U & M sees its advantage as knowing the mining trucks already inside out – it has decades of experience in remans and rebuilds of trucks – whereas others in the hybridisation space do not have that. Plus, U & M knows a lot of the about the minesite realities and what the truck will have to cope with in terms of conditions.
From mid-November 2025, U & M was planning to run its existing fleet of autonomous trucks at one of its customer sites in 24 / 7 operation with no safety driver. Up until now the five trucks have only been operating in the day shift with safety drivers, gathering data and experience for the full commissioning.
Underpinning both its innovation and technology capability U & M, has also built up its own dedicated electronics lab as part of its new tech team, which has grown out of electronics expertise built up in its reman facility. In this new next generation lab there is a lot of focus on having its electronics, including on the autonomous and hybrid trucks, become much more robust though a lot of testing and application of protection circuits. On the 730E hybrid prototype truck
for example, a lot of the OEM electronics have been removed and replaced with U & M controls so that everything is now using CANbus and ready to integrate with a lot of new technologies.
With the autonomous system, the OEM-led systems are still based on the premise that the autonomy still needs to be controlled by a central computer – U & M wanted to get away from this architecture and focus the navigation on the truck instead of the control room. It has developed all of its own algorithms for the automation stack and its own hardware for actuators. These are easily tested in its own proving grounds close by.
U & M also developed its own FMS inhouse as a development tool to use in R & D. It is simpler than others on the market – but is fit for purpose and designed to work with U & M’ s own AHS. Today U & M’ s FMS can handle around 15 trucks and in the future it may have potential to be used at customer sites where there is no existing FMS in place such as at a greenfield mine or satellite pit. This would save the customer having to make expensive FMS investments through third parties. Plus, U & M is also looking to develop better haulage simulation capabilities as well, both in-house and potentially through acquisition.
U & M Project Coordinator Lucca Machado:“ We have set out to have ownership of as much of the stack as we can. We are not going to start making LiDARs or radars, but on the software and electronics side, today we have the whole stack in-house. Why – because it means we can quickly add and remove things based on our testing and our needs. Today we are close to having AHS capability on a range of models – we have already done it with the Cat 777 which is running; on the 730E it is almost ready and once that is done it won’ t be that big a jump for our 930E trucks as the drive by wire interface is very similar.”
Luiza Bartels, also a U & M Project Coordinator for new technologies added:“ Our priorities today are to make our
technology work on retrofits and then in the conditions and scenarios most often seen in Brazilian mining plus in a way that fits best with our own controls and processes, as we will be offering this as a service to our own contract customers offering better cost per tonne and greater safety. Once it works for us maybe then it could work for others as well.”
The same applies to hybridisation – existing players were focused on newer equipment with IGBT AC technology. U & M is moving towards the development of a functional hybrid prototype based on retrofit, which will be tested at one of its customer mines in 2026. It is aiming for a go-to-market of its hybrid truck earthmoving services for the beginning of 2027 and targeting a low retrofit cost.
Moving to real progress – with the autonomy project there is one prototype Cat 777 at the proving grounds and another five at the customer site which are moving as stated to 24 / 7 operation.
For the hybrid truck there is also one prototype at the proving grounds – an old Komatsu 730E with refurbished wheel motors and alternator and a battery module fitted – with a second being assembled for testing at a customer site with the new ABB batteries; this is a different site to the one testing the AHS trucks. This will have a completely new cabinet and hydraulic tank along with the battery pack; plus a new operator cab to allow for new control interfaces and telemetry. All these are now being set up on site – the mine in question already has 13 730s running along with 29 Cat 777s.
Initially, the hybrid truck will have a throttle plus normal resistive brake then it will have a second brake for regen – for now to understand the system better but ultimately the system will decide when it is most efficient to deploy the regen brake and when to feed energy back into the system. Trials are set to start in December 2025 and will run for most of 2026 as well.
International Mining | NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2025