Imagine if a 50-foot robot truck could take dangerous work away from human miners… That’s exactly what is happening in the mines operated by the major company Rio Tinto. In Australian pits, there’s a series of robotic trucks that load, haul and dump ore and waste rock at open pit mines, a job that used to be done by workers.
Working with the Autonomous Haulage System is pretty much like having a gigantic self-driving car, like the ones from Google, to help you. Each 210-metric-ton vehicle is 27 feet wide and 51 feet long. They can individually carry about 320 metric tons of waste.
These robot dump trucks have been hauling ore in Western Australia since the end of 2008. Back in April, the dump trucks celebrated a major collective milestone: they had moved 100 million metric tons so far and travelled over one million miles at three different mines.
Working 24 hours per day if necessary, fifteen of these dump trucks work in the Australian Pilbara region, rich in iron, and are controlled from Rio Tinto headquarters, in Perth. Which means that are 930 miles separating them.
The vehicles communicate wirelessly with the help of a very precise GPS that allows them to autonomously detect obstacles and saving lives. They can avoid crashing into other vehicles or hurting the miners and are connected to a computer that supervises their actions.
The Australian animation company Toucan Creative made a video explaining how the trucks work, so if you’re curious click here.