Rio Tinto recently announced a milestone, having loaded 200m tons of iron ore into its 53 autonomous trucks in the Pilbara. The autonomous trucks are one aspect of the mining giant's "Mine of the Future" concept. The recent announcement on their autonomous trucks highlighted the benefits that they achieve through autonomy, including significant savings in maintenance, tyre life and fuel, decreased variability, improved schedule efficiency, and early identification of bottlenecks. Rio Tinto files patents under the name 'Technological Resources Pty Ltd' in Australia and has numerous patent applications related to autonomy. For example, Rio Tinto has a patent application relating to a robotic "vehicle wheel changing method" for the company's trucks.
展开▼
