How mining operations are adopting autonomy

By Jack Kopanski| August 18, 2023

Pronto’s autonomous hauling system allows mine operators to store saved routes and share them with trucks throughout their fleet. Photo: Pronto

The push for autonomy within mining operations has steadily grown in recent years.

Within the aggregate industry, specifically, that emphasis has been focused on hauling and haul trucks. There are a couple reasons why this aspect of operations has garnered much of the attention when it comes to autonomy.

According to Ben Miller, chief mining officer at Pronto – a company that specializes in autonomous hauling systems (AHSs) – the main reason is that hauling is one of the most repetitive tasks on jobsites. He says AHSs can help make up for a shortage of available truck drivers.

“It’s usually one of the harder roles to fill,” Miller says. “It’s a lower-tier job. You always feel a little bit short on truck operators, and that same pressure occurs in the quarry space.”

Other factors driving operations to autonomy are desires to get more hours out of a fleet, offset absenteeism and control variable costs.

“You may have days where you have way more trucks running than you actually need,” Miller says. “Quarries that are not 24/7 operations are able to squeeze down their costs in a way that allows them to be a true variable cost rather than a fixed cost for operation.

“The saying you usually hear on site is: ‘Well, we don’t need all four of those trucks today, but everyone is here [so] let’s keep them busy,’” Miller adds. “Keep them busy means do work. However, if that work isn’t required to be done today, it’s probably an unnecessary expenditure with the tight margins that are experienced in construction materials. You really have to look for those and squeeze those out of your organization.”

Real-world applications

Says Ben Miller, chief mining officer at Pronto: “You’re coming in with a really significant risk reduction by putting in autonomy.” Photo: Pronto

The benefits of autonomous hauling will soon be realized at Luck Stone’s Bull Run Plant in Chantilly, Virginia.

Luck Stone recently partnered with Caterpillar to outfit its fleet of 777G trucks with Cat MineStar Command for hauling to prove the viability of the technology in the 100-ton class. The goal is to develop a solution that can ultimately be commercialized for aggregate producers.

Installation of the MineStar Command network infrastructure and outfitting of the 777Gs will begin next year. According to Luck Stone, it will continue to work with Cat between 2025 and 2027 to help develop the technology in a live production environment.

“Here we are in [2023] and this is in us,” says Charlie Luck, president and CEO of Luck Stone. “This curiosity and innovation are in us. The industry may have one standard, but our family, our company and our associates want to do these kinds of projects that get people going: ‘You’re doing what? You’re going to put an autonomous truck in a quarry environment, with all the complexity that goes on with that?’”

Autonomous haulers have not yet been commercialized for aggregate producers, but mining companies have been using MineStar Command for hauling solutions for years.

Earlier this year, Cat indicated it had more than 580 autonomous haul trucks in the field at mines around the world. According to Cat, those trucks have operated without any lost-time incidents and have moved more than 5.5 billion tons of material.

Still, there is still plenty of learning to do before autonomous hauling finds a regular place in quarry operations.

“If you think about a quarry application where you may have fewer trucks, the heavy touch from an automation perspective is not required,” says Denise Johnson, Caterpillar group president of Resource Industries. “So how do we scale in a way that makes all the infrastructure that’s required and the operations much more seamless?”