An Australian mining group is betting big on big robots. After a recent demonstration at a gold mine, mining contractor MACA will retool a fleet of 100 very large vehicles to create one of the largest autonomous heavy equipment fleets in the world.
This is a major deployment in the gold mining sector, which certainly shows the industry’s even broader ambitions for automation. With the world hungrier than ever for precious metals and rare earths, technology is increasingly in demand to make mining operations more efficient and profitable.
Autonomous heavy equipment company SafeAI and its Australian partner, Position Partners, are behind this new deployment. This new generation of autonomous heavy-duty vehicle technology is a major upgrade over the first generation, which had limited on-board processing power and took a long time to achieve an ROI.
Autonomy 2.0
Early versions of autonomous vehicle technology in the industry also worked with closed proprietary systems, preventing mixed fleets from communicating between multiple systems. Industries like mining have had this technology for 20 years now, but lack of accessibility means it hasn’t really taken off yet.
Autonomy 2.0 is changing that. Powered by AI and equipped with multimodal sensors (lidar, radar, camera), these new systems have significant onboard processing power to reduce network dependency and enable rapid decisions. Autonomy 2.0 is also open, interoperable and vehicle-agnostic, meaning technology like SafeAI can be applied to any vehicle, regardless of age and manufacturer.
“This technology is a game-changer for our business, our customers and our industry,” said Shane Clark, director of technical services at MACA. “SafeAI’s versatile and scalable solution is unmatched in our industry today, and has profound implications for site safety, efficiency and profitability. We expect rapid adoption from our customers. , as they begin to see the tremendous impact of this technology.”
That means greater scalability – like this 100-truck deal – to accelerate deployment of autonomous equipment. One of the great benefits of self-sufficiency is that it creates much safer working conditions for on-site workers.
Of course, this also means that mining industries are becoming more and more efficient. As personal computing and battery technologies increasingly drive demand for mining resources, automation technologies are propelling these industries to ever greater capacities, a cycle that warrants heightened vigilance.
Source: “ZDNet.com”