Tag Archives: Andrew Crose

Hexagon, MinRes to ‘transform mining’ with autonomous road train developments

Automation, IoT, Mineral project development, Mining equipment, Mining services, Mining software, Steel and iron ore, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hexagon AB has signed a major agreement with diversified mining company Mineral Resources (MinRes) to provide an autonomous haulage solution for a fleet of road trains to run at the Onslow iron ore project in Western Australia, which, the companies say, will transform safety, productivity and sustainability in the region.

The world-first, fully autonomous road trains are a full-site, truck-agnostic solution, leveraging positioning, onboard autonomy and by-wire, fleet management, collision avoidance, world perception and autonomous mission management solutions from Hexagon.

These solutions will be added to Kenworth 330 t road trains (coming with three trailers each), which will run autonomously on MinRes’ 150 km private haul road.

This agreement builds on two major milestones the companies achieved over the last two years in anticipation of rolling out the fully autonomous road trains at Onslow.

In late 2021, Hexagon and MinRes signed an agreement to develop an autonomous road train solution as part of a plan to unlock “stranded tonnes” in the Pilbara of Western Australia. Then, in April 2022, the companies announced a world-first had been achieved with the successful demonstration of a triple-trailer, automated road train platoon in the Yilgarn of Western Australia – each autonomous road train, in this case, hauling 300 t of iron ore.

Andrew Crose, Vice President, Autonomous Mining, Hexagon’s Mining division, told IM that the speed of adoption of this automated solution – from agreement to demonstration, to planned commercial deployment, in a little over two years – was aided by the abilities and efforts of a global team of Hexagon experts.

“Hexagon has staffed a large multi-national team across the Hexagon technologies stack across Perth (Australia), United States, Brazil, Switzerland and Canada to deliver this technology,” he said.

The companies also worked within the framework of the established Code of Practice for Safe Mobile Autonomous Mining in Western Australia to gain the necessary regulatory approvals to move the project forward at such a pace.

Mike Grey, Chief Executive, MinRes, said in the press release: “Automation will remove the risk of driver fatigue, lower operating costs and reduce fuel use and emissions. There’s enormous potential for these vehicles to transform mining across the world.”

Commissioning of the autonomous road trains is expected to fall in line with the go-live date for Onslow – currently estimated for the first half of 2024.

The road trains form an important part of the 35 Mt/y project, ensuring this tonnage is moved from the mine to the Port of Ashburton.

MinRes has said previously that the autonomous road train technology will initially be adopted for its own mining operations, with a view to offering the solution to its Tier 1 customer base as it grows its Mining Services division.

Hexagon recently expanded its autonomy offering with the acquisition of HARD-LINE; a deal that, Nick Hare, President, Hexagon’s Mining division, says allows the company to provide a scalable automation platform that all mining companies can use and grow with.

HARD-LINE’s TeleOp tech to be offered as part of HxGN Autonomous Mining portfolio

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Hexagon’s Mining division has enhanced its collaboration with Canada-based tele-remote technology leader HARD-LINE, building on a previous distribution agreement the two companies announced back in September 2021.

HARD-LINE’s TeleOp technology allows the tele-remote operation of heavy machinery from a control station in a safe area on surface or underground, regardless of distance. In addition to safety benefits, there are significant productivity advantages to deploying such technology, utilising the equipment over shift changes in underground mines, for example.

Hexagon’s Mining division’s relationship with this technology was previously made up of a distribution agreement. Now, TeleOp is being incorporated into the wider automation offering that comes under the recently announced HxGN Autonomous Mining portfolio.

Speaking last week at HxGN LIVE Global 2023 in Las Vegas, Rob Daw, Chief Innovation Officer at Hexagon’s Mining division, said: “We are strengthening that partnership with HARD-LINE to enhance what the tele-remote solution can do and bring it together into the wider autonomy offering we have within Hexagon’s Mining division.”

HARD-LINE says it has developed “by-wire solutions” for more than 200 equipment models covering several OEMs, with more than 3,000 conversions completed to date.

The closer collaboration between the two companies is already being witnessed in Brazil where Hexagon’s Mining division, HARD-LINE, Scania and Fidens are working on the deployment of teleremote technology at a mine in the country.

Rodrigo Couto, President, LATAM, Hexagon’s Mining division (on the far right), explained: “In Brazil, there is a law dictating that you cannot operate equipment on a manual basis by areas deemed too risky, such as tailings dams, decommissioned & other reclaimed areas. This means tele-remote technology and automation are the only choice to carry out operations.”

Hexagon’s Mining division and HARD-LINE have sold several kits to clients in the country, with one of these kits heading to an operation overseen by Fidens, which has installed a tele-remote kit on a Scania G 500 6×4 Prime Mover.

Couto said: “This is reducing the risk of operators at the tailings operation and also allowing Fidens to operate in areas that, by law, were previously off limits.”

U&M and Hexagon ready to deploy AHS solution at Brazil mine

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U&M Mineração e Construção S/A, as the largest native open-pit mining contractor in the Americas and one increasingly focused on sustainability, is about to embark on a major autonomous haulage project that could prove transformational for all sizes of mine sites across the globe.

The company has been busily working on an in-house Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) for several years, enlisting the help of Hexagon’s Mining division back in 2020 to ensure what it delivered to the market was a commercial proposition with widescale applicability, IM discovered this week at HxGN LIVE Global 2023 in Las Vegas.

Now the companies are ready to deploy their combined OEM-agnostic AHS solution at a mine in Brazil, starting next month, as part of a plan to bring two AHS-enabled retrofitted Caterpillar 777 trucks to the operation.

The collaboration is seeing U&M carry out all mechanical changes to the 100-ton-class payload trucks to make them automation-ready without disturbing the OEM system. The contractor is also in charge of the navigation system and software that the trucks will run on – the ‘autonomous driver’ as it could be termed.

Hexagon, for its part, provides the HxGN Autonomous Mining Mission Manager Solution to optimise the movement of autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles, and mine production activities through one interface; the World Perception solution to enable object detection, operator vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-person awareness; and some additional on-board infrastructure – such as sensors and an antenna.

This, according to the companies, makes for an autonomous contractor solution that can be rolled out anywhere in the world.

“What we are creating is a scalable platform that can be used on any truck,” Mauricio Casara of U&M says

“The first project may involve Cat 777s, but what we are creating is a scalable platform that can be used on any truck,” Mauricio Casara, Commercial Director at U&M, told IM. “We are looking to improve on the legacy AHS solutions by making automation available to any size of mine with any type of trucks.”

As part of the company’s R&D work to this point, it has also retrofitted an autonomous solution on a Komatsu 730E, with that truck running at its proving grounds in Brazil.

Interestingly for this proof of concept involving the two Cat 777s, the plan is to enable the trucks to interact with both autonomous and manned vehicles in the haulage cycle from the off: an interaction that the traditional AHS providers have only just started to work on after more than a decade of industry deployments.

This is just one of the hurdles the solution will overcome, according to Andrew Crose, Vice President, Autonomous Mining, Hexagon’s Mining division.

“The world perception sensor stack that we have on board these machines will allow us to distinguish between trucks, light vehicles, berms, people and many other objects,” he said. “By leveraging this, we can ensure the trucks operate as safely as possible while being as productive as possible. That is key to achieving buy-in from all stakeholders involved.”

While the official partnership for this project was not signed until 2020, U&M has been utilising the GNSS positioning smarts of Hexagon – through the NovAtel business it acquired – for many more years.

This same GNSS solution is being leveraged in the two-strong autonomous truck trial along with V2X, 4D Radars,  ultra-wideband time-of-flight systems and more.

Crose added: “It’s worth mentioning that around 60% of the autonomous machines running in the field have some Hexagon solution on them. We are sometimes providing the positioning, world perception, fleet and mission management, onboard autonomy and by-wire, all part of our interoperable strategy.”

While this initiative is inevitably going to pique the interest of those companies in charge of running these autonomous trucks, U&M has no plans to compete with the likes of Caterpillar and Komatsu when it comes to manufacturing automation-ready trucks.

“There are so many existing trucks out in the field that our clients are running; all of which can be retrofitted with the solution we are working on,” Casara said. “The whole industry talks about sustainability and how to mine sustainably, but the sustainable solution to achieving autonomous operations is not to build brand new trucks and equip them for automation; it is to retrofit the smarts onto them to enable that automation.

“This is the sustainable way to roll out the automation needed across the sector to achieve mining companies’ productivity and decarbonisation goals.”

Hexagon’s Mining division highlights Power of One progress with new autonomous solutions launch

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Hexagon’s Mining division, on the day HxGN LIVE Global 2023 kicks off in Las Vegas, has introduced a new autonomous portfolio to its planning, operations and safety technology portfolios, signalling its intent to continue to solve the mining industry’s biggest challenges.

HxGN Autonomous Mining is a portfolio that protects people and equipment while addressing the challenges of operational productivity and decarbonisation, Hexagon’s Mining division says.

“By helping to autonomously manage vehicle traffic, improve fleet situation awareness and introduce drill automation, the new portfolio empowers mines to future-proof operations with the foundational building blocks of full operational autonomy,” it explained.

These building blocks include tools providing autonomous world perception, path planning in both manned driver-assist and autonomous operation, and machine intervention up through control on mining vehicles and drills primarily in open-pit environments and haulage operations.

HxGN Autonomous Mining unites Hexagon’s Power of One hardware with its core computing platform, connecting a unique ecosystem of sensors and software, according to the company. “The portfolio can help mines to succeed today while preparing for tomorrow,” Andrew Crose, Vice President, Autonomous Mining, Hexagon’s Mining division, said.

The Power of One platform is a holistic, life-of-mine smart solution connecting sensors, software, in-field apps and cloudware. The aim is to connect the mine to the boardroom via a single on-board ecosystem comprising a smart computer, antenna and display.

Nick Hare, President of Hexagon’s Mining division, told IM on the side lines of the Las Vegas event, hosted at Caesar’s Forum, that the company has rapidly moved from concept to reality with the Power of One platform.

He explained: “At MINExpo 2021, we announced the Power of One concept. Last year at HxGN LIVE Global, we told everyone it was now available and ready to implement. This year, we’re able to talk about real deployments that will start from the next quarter.

“We’ve moved from concept to deployment in just under two years, defying the supply chain issues that have affected everyone in this industry.”

The building blocks that are part of HxGN Autonomous Mining include the World Perception suite of detection solutions; mining’s first Level-9 collision avoidance technology, Hexagon’s collision intervention system, HxGN MineProtect Vehicle Intervention System; HxGN MineOperate Reverse Assist for optimised shovel and truck spotting; HxGN Autonomous Mining VIS Analytics to analyse and compare information such as locations, equipment and more; the intuitive drill automation platform, HxGN Autonomous Mining Drill Assist; HxGN Autonomous Mining Platooning Solutions to maximise the safety of ore haulage, boost cost-efficiency and reduce carbon emissions; and HxGN Autonomous Mining Mission Manager Solution to empower pit controllers and dispatchers to optimise the movement of autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles, and mine production activities through one interface.

The company’s “unparalleled” technology stack – as Crose refers to it – can currently automate around 80% of the processes involved in open-pit haulage, according to Hare.

In an on-the-road scenario, the company can already automate the majority of functions, as it is proving out with Mineral Resources Ltd on its autonomous road train project. In pit haulage, it is also working on an autonomous haulage system (AHS) solution to compete with the likes of Caterpillar and Komatsu’s own AHS platforms. Parts of this are likely to be seen operating later this year. In terms of autonomous drilling, the company is getting even closer to the fully-autonomous benchmark through work it is carrying out with Phoenix Drill Control.

While not all Power of One users will leverage the entire technology stack from the off, Hare said he is expecting many companies to quickly add building blocks to their deployments as they familiarise themselves with the platform.

“We have significantly improved upon the industry standard when it comes to the Power of One and this new automation platform,” he said. “For example, when integrating fleet management – under our HxGN MineOperate solution – and collision avoidance (the HxGN MineProtect Collision Avoidance System within the World Perception Suite), we can reduce the number of interfaces operators have to interact with. Depending on the scenario, we can highlight an optimised route to the crusher for a truck or make them aware of an impending collision on just one screen. This significantly improves the user experience, reduces the likelihood of incidents and improves productivity.”

Another significant enhancement the company has achieved with its Power of One platform is consolidating the numerous antenna fitted to open-pit trucks into a single antenna able to receive and, depending on the network and software settings, process the same amount of information.

“From a perception perspective, we have also moved up the tiers with our sensor solutions, going from a 2D radar-based system as was used for our initial collision avoidance systems to a 4D radar-based platform able to distinguish between people, berms, trucks, light vehicles, etc,” Hare said.

Add to this upgraded software to process all the valuable data coming off the sensor and the company believes it now has as close to an off-the-shelf commercial solution as can currently be obtained.

The platform is expected to bring immediate productivity benefits for customers – Crose mentions better blast outcomes with drilling automation to improved equipment performance and production via autonomously managed vehicle movement – but the reduction in hardware is also expected to lead to significant cost savings for clients.

“We are confident that this portfolio, under the auspices of the Power of One platform, will provide return on investment for clients,” Hare said. “While it is being integrated into a standardised offering that aids deployment cost and time, the starting point for every project is how to solve the problems the mining client is experiencing. We will take time to understand what issues they are having on site and ensure the system rules and algorithms are built in such a way as to prioritise solving these. At the same time, we will highlight as many opportunities to optimise their operations as we can.

“This is how we ensure that value is generated immediately from day one.”

Hexagon’s Mining division also introduced HxGN Underground Mining, an integrated sensor-software portfolio built for the unique challenges of underground environments, at the same event.

Rossing Uranium puts safety first with HxGN MineProtect OAS-HV installation

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Hexagon’s Mining division has completed what it says is a significant safety installation with Rossing Uranium Mine, in Namibia. This has seen primary mining vehicles at the mine equipped with HxGN MineProtect Operator Alertness System Heavy Vehicle (OAS-HV), two months ahead of schedule.

The customer’s commitment, engagement and willingness to adapt to COVID restrictions played a large part in the project’s success, according to Andrew Crose, Managing Director-EMEA, Hexagon’s Mining division.

“Hexagon shares Rossing’s commitment to safety and the core belief that people are a mine’s most precious asset,” Crose said. “The resourcefulness displayed by everyone involved was impressive. It ensured that we completed the project successfully and ahead of schedule.”

OAS-HV is an integrated fatigue and distraction detection, alerting and reporting solution that helps operators maintain the level of attention necessary for long shifts. Integrated with HxGN MineProtect Collision Avoidance System, OAS-HV uses sophisticated computer vision technology to provide a real-time fatigue and distraction risk status and traffic awareness to operators via unobtrusive, operator-friendly displays, according to the company.

Included with Rossing’s deployment is Hexagon’s 24/7 Remote Monitoring Service, ensuring impartial monitoring without imposing on the customer’s IT & Server infrastructure.

A successful trial among operators of OAS-HV in the December quarter of 2020 led to full deployment, George Murasiki, former Principal Advisor: Pit Operations and current Principal Advisor: Long Term Planning, said, with the system fully adopted by the operators.

“We noticed an increase in the productivity of operators and machinery, which improved our production,” he said. “Good communication between all parties ensured we achieved the efficiencies needed to reach targets early.”

Located in the Namib Desert, 70 km from the coastal town of Swakopmund, Rossing Uranium Mine is one of the largest open-pit uranium mines in the world.