Automation
operation for underground trucks and loaders. With over three million hours of continuous operation, the system is used by more than 600 vehicles on 75 different sites around the world. The technology enables trucks and loaders to autonomously navigate a mine in full production cycles, and during shift changes and blast clearance times. It can also be used to control a fleet of drill rigs for surface drilling operations.
On-site autonomy
These reasons and others drew Angico Eagle into considering automation for LZ5’s operations. “We started evaluating the different automation opportunities [for LZ5] in 2015,” says Luc Girard, mining operations superintendent at LZ5 for Agnico Eagle. Even by 2017, however, automation was still ruled out as an option for the site, “because it was a little mine with low tonnage, low grade”. By 2018, though, the cost of automation had dropped to a point where Agnico Eagle could implement it, which they did with promising results. However, there were initially some teething issues. Since the LZ5 site was not originally intended to be automated, it only had one ramp, rather than the two required for seamless automation. This meant that they couldn’t use automated equipment at the same time as manual equipment, with people out on the ground. The choice, then, was to either close the mine while automation was in use, or to isolate the automated equipment to a section of the mine people would be kept away from. Girard and his team’s first step was to muck a stope with a scoop and load a truck in the loading bay, before allowing the truck to automatically return at the surface. Two barriers were then put in place: one to isolate the automated equipment – the truck and scoop – and the other for the human-driven truck, with the two vehicles never entering the area at the same time. Since that first step, Agnico Eagle has implemented a range of automated technologies at LZ5. “We are the first mine to have an automated run – the truck coming from underground to the surface automatically,” says Girard, with a hint of satisfaction. A 4G LTE cellular signal is present throughout the underground mine, a first in the Canadian mining industry, which boosts the mine’s automation abilities. In the three years since LZ5 introduced the AutoMine system, the site’s automated fleet has grown from a single loader working on an isolated stope to four Sandvik LH517i loaders and six Sandvik TH551i trucks. Key to the success of LZ5’s implementation of automated technology has been the close relationship between the site and the developer of the technology. “It’s really a collaboration between us and Sandvik, since the beginning,” says Girard. “They work for us, we work for them,” he adds. This collaborative approach has allowed LZ5 to operate their automated systems efficiently and with confidence, and Girard speaks passionately about the mining site’s plans for
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the future, including implementing its first automated drill in 2022. By 2023 or 2024, he hopes that 30% or so of the mine’s operations will be fully automated, and from there the sky’s the limit.
A step ahead
While Agnico Eagle may have begun looking into automation in 2015, Sandvik’s journey truly took off in 2004, with its first customer sale. However, the development of its automation technology began back in the late 1990s. Today, Sandvik is able to implement a wide range of automated mining equipment, offering a number of key benefits to the industry. The most important is safety, one of Sandvik’s core focuses – in 2016, Sandvik had an industry-low lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) record of 0.7 for its mining services operations, with fewer than one injury per million hours worked. “We saw a need in the industry to start to move more towards automation,” explains David Hallett, vice-president of automation at Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions. The company was seeing growing interest in automation from some of the early adopters moving from manually operated mechanised mobile equipment, and decided to get ahead of the field, beginning development of its own technology. “I think that’s given us a pretty good head start on our competitors, at least – it’s given us an advantage to be able to have a lot of know-how learnings in this space over the years.” Well, small acorns into mighty oak trees grow, and in some ways the culmination of Sandvik’s decades of work can be witnessed in its AutoMine Concept Vehicle. As the world’s first fully autonomous underground mining machine built specifically for automation, the vehicle exists to demonstrate the company’s vision of the future.
“The whole purpose behind the AutoMine Concept
Vehicle is that we wanted to showcase our technology and vision of what mining in the future will look like,” explains Hallett. “So, in addition to automation, I think it’s important to highlight the fact that it’s a cabinless, fully battery electric loader as well – it’s a unique machine in that aspect.”
On top of those features, the vehicle is also equipped with the latest sensor technology for 3D environment sensing and detection, and uses artificial intelligence for self-planning and adapting as the environmental conditions around it change. “Automated bucket filling and automatic path planning are the two key features that allow for increased production and quick set-up into new working areas, which adds to the flexibility of the solution,” Hallett adds. He also highlights that the AutoMine Concept Vehicle’s on-board self- contained safety system provides quick obstacle detection and avoidance capabilities, allowing the vehicle to work alongside people without the need of installing isolation barriers.
19 3 million
Number of hours the AutoMine platform has of continuous operation of underground trucks and loaders. Sandvik
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