Caterpillar Inc. supports site safety with technology to see, mitigate and manage fatigue and distraction on site. The Cat® MineStar™ Driver Safety System (DSS) comes under the global OEM’s MineStar Detect suite of solutions and uses a high-tech camera to monitor eye-closure duration and head pose, then instantly alerts operators via seat vibration and an audio alarm alert the moment fatigue or distraction is identified.

MineStar DSS is the one of the leading fatigue detection systems globally. Sean McGinnis, Vice President and General Manager of Technology and Global Sales Support at Caterpillar told IM Editorial Director, Paul Moore: “The market has been growing faster in the past few years as mines focus ever more closely on safety. Since 2021, Caterpillar fatigue management system units running globally have increased 80%. This includes use in both mining fleets and support equipment such as light vehicles, mobile maintenance vehicles and buses that are also being used on mine properties. And this support equipment part of the market is really a big focus now. Support equipment vehicles are equipped with a similar solution from the MineStar Detect portfolio for light vehicle applications called Guardian 2 which was initially designed for fatigue and distraction monitoring in off-highway vehicles.”

Sean McGinnis, Vice President and General Manager of Technology and Global Sales Support at Caterpillar

So the MineStar DSS footprint continues to grow. But the solution is not standing still – McGinnis told IM: “Today’s offering, what we call DSS 5.0, which is deploying in the market now, has some fairly significant upgrades to the underlying algorithms that relate to head position tracking, eye closure tracking and facial recognition. This is backed up by an improved camera that has enhanced granularity particularly in relation to the eye tracking.”

McGinnis also gave some insight into how much better and smarter the camera systems are becoming. “Today we can detect if an eye closure is just due to dryness or itching for example, as opposed to an unplanned or uncontrolled eye closure related to fatigue.”

He adds on the market itself: “A lot of the focus now is not just on support equipment but also the mid-tier miners – including industrial minerals operations and quarries with smaller fleets and smaller classes of machines. Their operators still get tired – it is just that the first wave of fatigue management system deployment – not just from us but from other players – was in the large mines, most of which now have some kind of system installed, whether predictive or reactive or both.”

What about the argument that there is a lot of resistance in some mining regions to having a camera-based system? “The response is often initially cautious with some pushback, just as it is with technologies like collision avoidance and autonomy but it comes down to proper change management. There is a fear that operators are constantly being watched or that the way they drive is being controlled. But once they get experience with the technology, particularly when there is a fatigue event and need to keep the operator safe, operators soon realise how crucial it is. Also, fatigue has been such a huge issue for mining for so long, for many it is also a relief to get a solution in place.”

He adds: “They soon understand that there isn’t a constant video feed where someone can sit and watch operators drive the entire time. Short video clips get transmitted to the Cat DSS Monitoring Center just for the analysis to confirm if the operator is awake or fatigued, and if they are distracted or not. Once operators realise supervisors can’t log in and watch them drive at any time, and that the system is 100% there for their safety and wellbeing, opposition including from unions quickly fades away. MineStar DSS is not intended to be used to discipline or punish an operator.”

What are McGinnis’ views on predictive versus reactive? “We have no issue with mines using both predictive and reactive technologies. One is not necessarily better than the other, as they are doing different things and give you different kinds of information. For us, predictive data has always been more of an assessment tool rather than a commercial offering. It gives us some insight into the customer’s higher risk points but the issue is that it is very hard to gauge accurately the eventual outcome of the predictive data as there are just so many factors in play. MineStar DSS may be a reactive system, but it doesn’t care when you are tired or why you are tired – it’s always there. Also, the predictive systems mainly involve a wearable – a physical interaction with the operator – with MineStar DSS you just get in the truck and drive. We feel the future for predictive analysis also must look at the machine behaviour – the types of steering wheel adjustments you are making, how hard you are braking, etc – and combine that with the operator’s tiredness data as well as the MineStar DSS for a comprehensive solution.”

Ultimately, McGinnis sees the potential for a comprehensive and integrated solution that will combine predictive and reactive fatigue analysis along with machine data and driving behaviour data from the wider MineStar Detect suite as well as collision avoidance technology that could ultimately all feed into and be hosted on the overall MineStar Fleet Management System – a tab that could be managed on both the MineStar Fleet and MineStar Edge versions. That would then be used for dispatchers to make decisions about breaks and shifts for operators without having to rely on subjective information. If you rely on the operator acting on a fatigue score – if they are already tired they aren’t necessarily going to make great decisions.

So how does a typical MineStar DSS rollout look in terms of phasing? “Typically we start with where the perceived highest risk is, and that tends to be the big mining trucks and other associated machines. If it’s a new user we might have done a Fatigue Risk Assessment – this is an initial offering for mine sites that are considering MineStar DSS deployment – but if it is a mining group that has MineStar DSS running at other sites they often just opt to get it deployed as soon as possible to get the instant safety benefit. Then the deployment will filter down to other fleet vehicles like water trucks and service trucks, and then the light vehicles and worker buses. However, we have had some cases where due to a fatigue related event on a worker bus previously, they want the system deployed there even before the mining trucks.”

What about machines like graders where the operator is not looking ahead all the time – this has often been given as a limitation of camera systems. McGinnis: “We have MineStar DSS on quite a few graders and the first thing we usually do is change or even turn off the distraction setting. Obviously, there is still a limitation if they aren’t looking towards the camera – but eventually we may move towards having several cameras in machines of this type to take account of all the main operator positions.”

McGinnis added that the MineStar DSS cameras are also getting much better at extrapolation. To give an example, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Caterpillar was already working on the system being able to analyse operator fatigue if they were wearing a headscarf or mask – the system is capable of taking data from one eye and extrapolating from that – this has been integrated now in MineStar DSS so is also a big plus in terms of dealing with graders and other support machines where the operator focus is more varied.

MineStar DSS has also had success underground. “Today we have four underground mining fleets utilising MineStar DSS in Australia, Africa and North America. The system works in the cab essentially in the same way – the primary difference being of course there is no GPS, so we use other inputs for the speed and location depending on what the network infrastructure is like underground.”

Why has underground mining been so slow on the uptake on fatigue management technology? McGinnis: “There are fewer underground mines for a start, but with a handful of exceptions, also the fleet sizes are smaller than in larger surface mines.” An interesting additional application for MineStar DSS in underground mining is for locomotive drivers operating underground ore trains which has seen very positive results.

Concluding, McGinnis reiterated that in the big mines, the fatigue monitoring market is now quite mature, when you consider MineStar DSS along with the other players. “Major miners either have it, or they have decided they don’t want it for various reasons.”

IM has previously indicated that Newmont has effectively standardised on MineStar DSS across its operations – are more major miners opting to use it across multiple sites or is it still very much a site-by-site decision? “Two more of the world’s largest miners have also effectively standardised on MineStar DSS across their operations apart from only a few sites where they decided to keep in place another technology they had already been using. What we are seeing as mentioned before is a lot of the big mines filtering DSS down into their ancillary and support machine fleets beyond the haulage fleet.”

Finally, as the MineStar DSS population has grown, so has the monitoring centre in Peoria, whose safety advisors now look after hundreds of mine sites 24/7. The Cat DSS Monitoring Center classifies events from all the mines where MineStar DSS is operating and connected and intervenes when necessary to ensure operator and mine site safety. From five safety advisors in total at the beginning of the MineStar DSS journey, today there are five on every eight-hour shift.

Growth regions beyond the traditional mining markets in recent years have included countries like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, but also in Europe where a lot of industrial minerals and aggregate operations are now looking to deploy fatigue monitoring technology. And many of these sites are able to use the lighter MineStar Guardian 2 option – the MineStar DSS mining unit is higher cost as was designed for big mining trucks and to be resistant to hot and cold climate extremes as well as dust and vibration, plus being ruggedised for example with heavier connectors. But these smaller mines, running smaller mining trucks and often Articulated Dump Trucks (ADTs), and often not operating 24/7, can use the lighter version which also has a lower price point.