Veris Limited’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Aqura Technologies, has been selected to support Roy Hill in the design, install and commissioning of an expansion of its advanced Private 4G LTE network at its Pilbara iron ore mining operations in Western Australia.

The new project builds upon Aqura’s first phase delivery of Roy Hill’s new Private 4G LTE network in May 2021.

The new A$1.8 million ($1.31 million) project value leverages Aqura’s experience with Roy Hill in the first phase installation and commissioning, it said, building on Aqura’s track record in delivering “leading-edge, high performance Private LTE networks underpinning the digital transformation programs of large-scale operational activities in highly remote locations”.

Aqura Technologies CEO, Travis Young, said: “We are very pleased to have our performance, quality and value-driven approach recognised by Roy Hill through the form of this new contract following the highly successful outcomes delivered in our initial engagement earlier this year.

“The installation and successful commissioning of the first phase within such a short timeframe proved critical in the validation work of Roy Hill’s autonomous haulage and broader digitisation programs.

“Our in-house team is looking forward to continuing to extend the reach of the Roy Hill Private LTE network, which will accelerate the realisation of benefits from their Autonomous Haulage Systems and digital transformation initiatives.”

The project will commence with the design phase in November 2021 with scheduled completion to occur by June 2022.

Back in May, Roy Hill said of the AHS project: “Roy Hill’s autonomous haulage project has completed its initial start-up phase and has moved into production testing at the company’s Pilbara mine. A fleet of seven trucks have been converted using the Epiroc/ASI Mining autonomous haulage solution. This interoperable conversion kit has been fitted to both Hitachi EH5000 and CAT 793F trucks enabling load and haul circuits to commence in a segregated autonomous operating zone.

“Having established a stable haul circuit, work is progressing on optimisation and testing across additional mining scenarios. Another core feature of Roy Hill’s innovative AHS program is an open architecture approach, allowing existing and new systems to work together to deliver superior outcomes. We recently commenced testing the dispatching interface between Roy Hill’s existing fleet management system Wenco and ASI Mining’s Mobius traffic management software.”