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The World's Heaviest Robot

Posted by timothy on from the or-at-least-r/c-truck dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "This distinction goes to a future autonomous version of the 700-tons Caterpillar mining truck. In this article, Discovery News reports that Caterpillar engineers and computer scientists from Carnegie Mellon University have teamed up to develop this autonomous truck. Japan-based Komatsu has already delivered autonomous mining trucks to its customers, but these are smaller than the Caterpillar ones. Both companies are transforming their trucks into 'robots' for three reasons. Improvements in safety, efficiency and productivity will reduce costs and increase availability."

4 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. All I Have to Say Is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You'll be hearing from Shampoo's lawyers.

  2. Quick, tag this 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong' by MrHanky · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not that I think there's a huge chance that things will go wrong with, but think of how awesomely cool it would go wrong if it did.

    1. Re:Quick, tag this 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong' by ColaMan · · Score: 5, Informative

      My old man drives a 797 at a coal mine in Central Queensland - top speed unloaded is 60km/hr.
      I don't define that as "incredibly slow", as it's a damn sight faster than you can run.

      Got a photo around here somewhere of him and his truck- he's 6ft tall, and standing next to the truck, his hard-hat is level with halfway up the hub of the front tyre.

      Top speed loaded is 40km/hr, but that is because the tyres cannot take the higher speeds - they overheat and blow. When a tyre is $35,000 and it blows, that's not good. When it's pumped to it's normal pressure of 130PSI and the truck is parked anywhere near people when it goes off, that's definitely very,very bad.

      Considering the inertia involved, they are pretty much unstoppable by cars, buildings,etc if at speed - they will mow right over the top of your average 4x4 and not even notice. A guy where he works ran over an (empty) Toyota Landcruiser troop carrier one night - swung around in a loop to dump, backed up towards the face, felt a bump "like coming up against a little ridge of dirt" (his words) , put the foot down a little, reverse to face, dump load, drive forward a little, get out of the cab for a smoke, look down in front of the truck.... what's that down near the front wheel? Oh, crap.

      But anyway, I've worked on more autonomous stuff than this.

      Sandvik (and Cat) have systems for underground mines that are pretty much fully autonomous. Sandvik and their Toro loaders can do a full circuit in auto, driving using laser rangefinders to map the walls, update their location on an internal map and basically do all the work except actually dig the bucket of ore. They do traffic control (one loader waits for another at intersections), collision avoidance, the whole shebang.

      So one guy can operate three or four loaders at once, as all he does is take control of a loader at the ore pile, dig a bucket, then set it loose to go and dump that load automatically elsewhere. Meanwhile another loader turns up and sits idle at the ore pile waiting for him to take control. It's Management's wet dream - no need for trained underground operators on $55/hr, get some 17 year old in a control room on the surface at $20/hr running 4 loaders.

      If ore wasn't so tricky to dig out (irregular sizing is the problem), they'd be full auto by now.

      --

      You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
      There is a lot of hype here.
  3. Mining in the Pilbara by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I live in Western Australia, where Rio Tinto are developing their autonomous mining equipment. My old man is employed by Rio as a radio techie and as such he has a small part to play in the development of their autonomous trucks. I'm posting anonymously as I don't want any of these remarks getting him in trouble.

    The basic model relies on a single central system coordinating all the trucks as they move about. There have been a lot of kinks to do with radio lines of sight. Mine sites where the principal ore body is ferrous tend not to be very friendly to radio transmission. The actual driving of the trucks is not hugely complicated as the routes are identical for every run and GPS systems make it easy to align a truck with the road. It's not like navigating a desert track or urban landscape.

    Rio are also working on automating their trains. Alongside BHP, Rio has one of the largest fully private rail networks in the world. The two mining giants run the largest freight trains anywhere -- several kilometres long with tens of thousands of tons of iron ore. That may change as the two mining giants are being forced to open their networks to junior mining companies -- it looks easy on paper but railway systems are extremely complicated and finely balanced systems.

    The scale of the mining efforts in the Pilbara boggle the mind. They are utterly vast. Whole mountains made of rust are being excavated, crushed and then shipped to Japan and China. The pace is frenetic. Rio and BHP can't find enough workers and that has caused costs to explode, which is part of why they are turning to automation. But really it's about throughput: an autonomous truck doesn't need lunch breaks, delays for shift change or the like. Every minute counts.

    Rio have been more forward-looking than BHP in this department, so it may not last as BHP are trying to carry out a hostile takeover at the moment.