Coal Age

MAR 2018

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March 2018 www.coalage.com 41 operating ideas continued Over the next three years and beyond, the center intends to work through BHP's top 70 asset classes to accelerate the deliv- ery of productivity improvements. Liebherr, Hitachi/Wenco Offer Autonomous Solutions; Rio Tinto Expands Fleets As rapidly advancing machine-control technology brings autonomous equip- ment operations within practical reach for a growing number of mine sites, the pace of notable developments is stepping up as well, as evidenced by announcements from several well-known industry suppli- ers and producers. Liebherr Mining Equipment provid- ed an update of its autonomous haulage solution in November, noting that its de- velopment program is currently under way and initial prototype testing has been "live" since 2016. The company said it plans to begin field trials of a pre-series unit at a customer site in 2019. "We will offer three options to sup- port various customer approaches to au- tonomy," said Bryant Ward, executive vice president, engineering and development, at Liebherr Mining Equipment in Newport News, Virginia. "Some customers would like a single supplier to do everything in a turn-key approach. Others want multi- ple supply options and are prepared for a larger integration effort. In this way, Lieb- herr will deliver the most flexible and cost effective way to achieve an autonomous haulage solution." Liebherr said it intends to provide an open architecture allowing customers flex- ibility with respect to the level of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) content and integration from Liebherr to comple- ment customers' existing investments in fleet management and telemetry. This, it said, "will allow our customers to use Li- ebherr products along with other OEM equipment and choose the most suitable suppliers for third party solutions." Liebherr and Autonomous Solutions Inc. (ASI) jointly announced in October that Liebherr's autonomous-ready haul trucks will be compatible with ASI's Mo- bius autonomous command and control platform. More recently, ASI said it also has collaborated with Enaex, a subsidiary of the Chilean Sigdo Koppers Group, to de- velop semiautonomous blasting function- ality by employing Mobius. ASI said its Mobius for Blasting appli- cation provides capability for teleoperation and autonomous navigation of blast vehi- cles, including mobile manufacturing unit and stemming vehicles. Mobius has the potential to coordinate drill and blasting, resulting in tailored blast processes based on "as-drilled" hole data, creating higher efficiency and increased fragmentation. Enaex announced the joint robotic effort at a recent event highlighting the Mine-iTruck, a mobile manufacturing unit that can be operated autonomously at a surface mine site. This development, ac- cording to the company, is part of an eco- system of teleoperation and autonomous units that will allow Enaex to improve worker safety by using technology to per- form tasks from a safe location within po- tentially hazardous mine environments. Rio Tinto recently reported it will ex- pand the fleet of autonomous haul trucks at its iron ore operations in Western Aus- tralia's Pilbara by more than 50% by 2019, after signing agreements with Komat- su and Caterpillar to convert traditional trucks to autonomous vehicles. A total of 29 Komatsu haul trucks will be retrofitted with Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) technology starting next year. The project at the Brockman 4 oper- ation is scheduled for completion by mid- 2019, allowing the mine to run entirely in AHS mode once fully deployed. A further 19 Caterpillar haul trucks at the Marandoo mine will also be retrofitted starting mid- 2018 for completion by the end of 2019. The retrofit marks the first time AHS tech- nology has been deployed by the company on Caterpillar haul trucks. Once completed, the retrofit projects are expected to make a significant contri- bution toward Rio Tinto's $5 billion pro- ductivity program. According to Rio Tinto, the retrofit program will assist the iron ore business in delivering an additional $500 million of free cash flow annually from from 2021 (see previous article). The company said last year, on average, each of Rio Tinto's autonomous haul trucks operated an additional 1,000 hours and at 15% lower load and haul unit cost than conventional trucks. About 20% of the existing fleet of almost 400 haul trucks in the Pilbara is AHS-enabled. Follow- ing the completion of the projects with Komatsu and Caterpillar, Rio Tinto will have more than 130 autonomous trucks, representing about 30% of the fleet. Also in December, Wenco International Mining Systems reported that trials of Hita- chi Construction Machinery's autonomous mine haul trucking solution, developed in conjunction with Wenco's dispatch fleet management software, had been success- fully completed at an Australian coal mine. The test involved three autonomous-ready Hitachi EH-5000 haulers operating at Stan- well Corp.'s Meandu mine in Queensland. "We're very excited to reach this mile- stone," said Louis Chan, Wenco's manag- er of research and development on the project. "Wenco has worked closely with Hitachi since 2014; completion of this test phase proves capability of managing ful- ly autonomous vehicles from fleet man- agement and fleet automation software. We're now eager to move ahead to the next phase: trials in active mine operations." Stanwell's most recent annual report noted that autonomous haul trucks have moved more than 300,000 bcm of earth in mine rehabilitation work, and the compa- ny is now in discussions with Hitachi re- garding extending the trial through 2019. "We're looking to move to the next stage very shortly with a commercial product in operation at an actual operating mine," said Eric Green, general manager of mining at Hitachi Construction Machinery Austra- lia, "That's in the plans for 2019 or 2020." Almost 30 Komatsu haul trucks will be retrofitted with Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) technology at Rio Tinto's Brockman No. 4 iron ore operation. The project is scheduled for completion by mid-2019, allowing the mine to run entirely in AHS mode once fully deployed.

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