Liebherr is currently advertising for an Australia-based Product Manager – OHT and Automation, which it describes as “a fantastic career opportunity for a suitably qualified and experienced, high achieving leader.” Reporting to Scott Bellamy, the Head of Product Management – Mining Trucks, the new employee “shall be responsible for the research and definition of international market desires for the realisation of autonomous/semi-autonomous mining products for Liebherr hydraulic excavators (HEX), off-highway haul trucks (OHT) and mining dozers.”
The role will also be responsible for the research, definition and administration of market and internal stakeholder requirements to ensure strategic evolution of the company’s existing OHT product line. A key aspect of the role shall be to develop and maintain performance benchmarking for both manned and unmanned HEX and OHT applications within international mining regions. “This role will see the successful candidate working closely with colleagues and customers globally to achieve required outcomes. The role will be based within one of Liebherr Australia’s branches, location is negotiable for the right candidate.”
Burkhard Richthammer, Managing Director Design and Engineering at Liebherr-Mining Equipment Colmar recently told IM in one of our Insight video interviews: “In our automation vision, we are supporting open interchangeability between different kinds of machines; so our mission is that we are developing trucks and automation systems where you can connect your truck with any kind of fleet management system. We want to give our customers the opportunity to choose the fleet management system and we are then able to connect to that system with our equipment. Also, what we want to offer is a flexible autonomous solution which means that we are offering a truck ready for automation, and even the integration of this truck into an existing fleet management system could be possible. Our development focus on autonomous products is to deliver a system which has a very high level of autonomous thinking on the machine. We intend to reduce the dependency further from a centralised kind of system, allowing for instance a machine to drive around an object on a haul road by its own decision. With this solution we intend to give the machine more autonomy and more freedom and allow for a better operational continuity. We intend to have the first tests/trials running at the beginning of 2020. The integration work for serial delivery of an autonomous ultraclass haul truck will be finished in the next 18 to 20 months so we are expecting then to have the first truck fully available and to be available to be connected to third party fleet management systems. We are looking forward to that time!”
Liebherr has been partnering with ASI Mining on its automation program. Back in October 2017, the two companies announced that Liebherr’s new autonomous ready haul trucks will be compatible with ASI’s autonomous command and control platform; Mobius. The statement said Liebherr’s vision of an autonomous haul truck “includes an open interface that enables the truck to integrate to ASI’s Mobius platform. Liebherr’s autonomous vehicles can be controlled under an OEM agnostic command system for autonomous vehicles, providing maximum flexibility for their customers.”
“By adopting the Mobius platform, Liebherr is poised to differentiate its autonomous vehicles by addressing the market need for interoperability and openness,” explained ASI’s Drew Larsen, Director of Business Development for Mining, said at the time. “I believe the market will welcome Liebherr’s decision.” Liebherr has integrated with the Mobius protocols for its vehicle control interface, rather than establishing a proprietary command and control platform on its own. This move to an open platform will provide much needed flexibility to their customers when integrating different autonomous vehicle types throughout a mine site.
In terms of fleet management systems, Larsen at IM‘s recent Truck & Shovel conference in Singapore stated that ASI’s approach using its Mobius integration platform for autonomy allows users to “integrate the existing FMS with the AHS Command and Control System rather than replacing it.”