In late November, the world of autonomous and battery electric underground mining got another step closer as a Sandvik automation ready 18 t class LH518iB LHD was unloaded at iron ore miner LKAB’s Malmberget mine in Sweden. The machine is now 1,250 m underground and being prepared for operation. This deployment in Europe follows the delivery of another LH518iB to the Boliden Garpenberg zinc mine, also in Sweden, back in August.
Sandvik launched the LH518iB in March 2023. The LH518iB is the first Sandvik underground battery machine equipped for full automation, being compatible with its AutoMine Lite and AutoMine Fleet offerings as well as its Manual Production Monitoring system. Sandvik’s patented self-swapping battery system, including the AutoSwap and AutoConnect functions, minimises infrastructure needs and enables the loader to return to operation significantly sooner than ‘fast-charge’ mining BEVs, the company claims.
The battery swap is performed by the loader itself, controlled by the operator in the cabin, without need for overhead cranes or forklifts. In the future the whole process is likely to be automated, and Sandvik is working on this. Sandvik is additionally developing battery management systems to enable operators and supervisors to see what level of charge the on-board battery has and the expected time to full charge of spare batteries to enable critical decision-making around when to swap the on-board battery.
IM caught up with LKAB’s Peter Gustavsson, Project Manager Electrification at LKAB for more information on the plans for the machine. He comments: “Our transformation to emission free mining value chain demands us to break conventional way of working and work with new technologies. LH518iB will be supporting us in that journey. We are looking forward to testing the machine in an operational environment.”
Gustavsson added that work environment improvement for operators is its core focus. Operationally, he says that productivity from the LH518iB’s highly efficient electric motors will be evaluated and that assessment of work routines around battery management will be performed.
He summarised the thinking behind the machine deployment as follows: “Mining at deeper levels may require us to rethink our processes to ensure the safety of our workforce, so we are looking into automation as a solution with this machine to further develop our learnings.
Secondly, we understand the low operational cost with an electric fleet and through automation we can increase our availability and utilisation as well.”
The LH518iB is not the only electric loader solution LKAB is looking at for Malmberget – it has also agreed to acquire a LF-19EB tethered-battery electric loader from Germany-based GHH. It has a 34 kWh on-board battery for panel-to-panel electric tramming, and while initially designed for feeder breaker loading in the soft rock, salt and potash mining industries, the model for Malmberget has been upgraded for hard-rock applications with input from LKAB.
