Sandvik continues setting the industry standard with AutoMine for Trucks

By MEq March 19, 2020 20:09

Sandvik AutoMine for Trucks is a first for autonomous ramp haulage applications in the underground mining industry, providing autonomous truck haulage not only in underground environments but now also on the surface. It turns Sandvik’s intelligent mining trucks into unmanned robots, robots that keep running.

For years, mining operations across the world have benefitted from Sandvik’s intelligent AutoMine systems for autonomous and unmanned truck haulage. They help to reduce equipment damage, repair work and add the highest levels of efficiency and fleet utilization, giving a lower cost per ton. They are scalable for different mining applications and can be supervised from remote locations.

A key requirement for an autonomous ramp haulage application is to enable the capability for trucks to operate autonomously not only underground but also on the surface. With this product release, Sandvik has unlocked this capability for its customers. A core innovation behind the new capability is the smart handover technology that allows trucks to switch from underground to surface navigation mode in real-time. This allows trucks to continue through the ramp portal seamlessly to the surface to complete the dumping cycle.

AutoMine also connects directly to Sandvik OptiMine, enabling efficient production planning and automatic dispatching of tasks to AutoMine for production execution. The progress of production tasks is reported back to OptiMine giving mines real-time visibility of their automated and manual operations and enabling them to make informed decisions on their operation. Other benefits of OptiMine include equipment and people location tracking, 3D Mine Visualization, and predictive analytics to transform data into actionable insights. Integration with My Sandvik Productivity allows mines to keep track of their trucks’ condition and know the real-time status of the fleet.