New worlds/Robot loading and haulage are coming to material moving

摘要

Autonomous loading and hauling is the big R&D focus in underground mining right now, with several mining firms looking to reduce costs and increase productivity. Getting the human operator out of the cab is seen as the way ahead for bigger, safer and more efficient underground mines and similar moves are coming to surface mining, although actual production applications may be further off. Because of the potential demand for equipment and systems for mine automation, some key moves are being made amongst the technology suppliers, both in underground and surface mining sectors. One of the most recent is the acquisition of Australian firm Tritronics by Leica Geosystems in a deal worth 12 million Australia dollars (plus a further 6 million Australia dollars payable over three years if revenue targets are met). Leica says this purchase will strengthen its mining-segment product offering by adding technology used in machine automation and site management. The integrated solutions offered by Tritronics feature a number of automated production technologies including GPS-based navigation, wireless telecommunications infrastructure and Internet-based remote monitoring and configuration. These systems are used in a wide array of surface mining machines and are a cornerstone of any automation technology. On a similar note, GPS equipment plays a huge role in surface mine automation and it is worth noting that Caterpillar has strengthened its partnership with GPS pioneer Trimble Navigation. Meanwhile Thales Navigation, a GPS solution provider, and Geodetics, which specialises in high-precision real-time GPS software, now have a close business relationship. Thales Navigation is marketing Geodetics' RTD -Real Time Dynamics GPS Network software system. The deal allows Geodetics to benefit from Thales' distribution and marketing strength. For its part, Thales Navigation is able to provide a complete hardware/software solution, in addition to its own reference station hardware and software solutions. RTD is designed for real-time, high-precision GPS sensor tracking, based on its proprietary Epoch-by-Epoch technology. This can provide instantaneous initialisation/re-initialisation with five or more satellites for more accurate and reliable positioning in real-time. This allows position to be determined independent of previous data at each instant in time. The RTD server controls a network of GPS base stations centrally using data communication, processing, and archiving functions. The RTD software is designed to control networks of GPS reference stations, including Thales' iCGRS, which is claimed as the first direct Internet-connected reference station on the market.