To capitalise on the opportunity of intelligent mining, SANY Heavy Equipment says it is focusing on the development of unmanned surface mining equipment, including the trucks, deployment system and cloud platform.
On June 11, 2020 two units of battery electric unmanned SKT90E wide-body mining trucks successfully realised connection and coordination with a 5G-controlled excavator and cloud platform in place of operators working in the pit, which creates both a safer and more efficient unmanned operation.
The two SKT90E wide-body mining trucks demonstrated high-level environmental identification and positioning capacity. They can conduct timely decision making and accurate route planning in the operational area. The deviation of the horizontal control of the unmanned operation can be kept under 30 cm. The trucks can independently complete route-tracking, loading and unloading of material, and parking.
The adoption of an electric power system for the mining trucks solves the problem of potential fuel shortages at high altitude mines and the unmanned driving technology makes the operation safer in what is a landslide prone area.
With the support of an integration of multiple sensing technologies including millimetre-wave radar, laser radar and visual sensor, the truck can conduct the scanning and tracking of obstacles within 150 m and it can also implement distance ranging and identification within 100 m in response to different weather conditions in different seasons.
Accurate positioning uses:
- GNSSRTK centimetre-level inertial navigation system
- Real-time three-dimensional scanning to locate and map
- Precise positioning of specifically targeted space
Intelligent decision-making includes:
- Automatic creation of the three-dimensional map of routes in the mine with laser radar
- Route planning
- Independent obstacle avoidance and track-followed driving
- Optimisation of driving routes with dynamic simulation
The company says: “In face of the deep engagement of intelligent technologies with the mining industry, SANY will keep making efforts to improve its solutions with the focus on intelligent and unmanned technologies to help customers ensure a safer work environment and keep the efficiency up but cost down.”
