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Mining Companies Are Using Autonomous Trucks, Drills and Trains To Boost Efficiency, Reduce Employees (technologyreview.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Mining companies are rolling out autonomous trucks, drills, and trains, which will boost efficiency but also reduce the need for human employees. Rio Tinto uses driverless trucks provided by Japan's Komatsu. They find their way around using precision GPS and look out for obstacles using radar and laser sensors. The company's driverless trucks have proven to be roughly 15 percent cheaper to run than vehicles with humans behind the wheel -- a significant saving since haulage is by far a mine's largest operational cost. Trucks that drive themselves can spend more time working because software doesn't need to stop for shift changes or bathroom breaks. They are also more predictable in how they do things like pull up for loading. "All those places where you could lose a few seconds or minutes by not being consistent add up," says Rob Atkinson, who leads productivity efforts at Rio Tinto. They also improve safety. The driverless locomotives, due to be tested extensively next year and fully deployed by 2018, are expected to bring similar benefits. They also anticipate savings on train maintenance, because software can be more predictable and gentle than any human in how it uses brakes and other controls. Diggers and bulldozers could be next to be automated.
We have domestic companies doing the same thing: http://www.cat.com/en_US/artic...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
For farms Case is doing autonomous tractors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The technology is there and easy enough that someone built his own version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
A big motivating reason for using the automated trucks is reduced wear on the tires. Each tire costs a small fortune. Extending their life by 5 to 10% is a big deal.
About $50,000 a piece, and each truck needs six. And that's just purchase cost.They're expensive to transport and probably not easy to fit. Plus the cost of having a vehicle out of commission. For a full tire change you'd spend half a million dollars.
I wonder why they didn't start with the automated trains. Technologically, it must be a hundred times simpler.
Automated excavation already exists. Google Automated machine grading. You input a design terrain model into the equipment and put someone in the seat to drive it and the equipment does all the excavating and tells the driver where to go. This has existed for about a decade. The next step is get rid of the no skill driver in the seat and add the radar and cameras so it doesn't run anyone over. Given the advancement in driver-less vehicles it's not going to be long before the only people on construction sites are the foreman and engineer.