Tag Archives: HxGN LIVE Global 2023

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

Automation, Communications in mining, IoT, Mine operation news, Mining equipment, Mining safety, Mining services, Mining software, Precious metals, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.”

Procon laying the change management groundwork for mining tech adoption

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Canada-based Procon has been implementing tried and tested technology for its employees and end customers for decades, resulting in improved operational safety and productivity outcomes.

It is now looking to make the leap and adopt new solutions from the mining technology sector, according to CEO John McVey, with the contract miner already into “phase three” of an “Industrial Supervisor training program”, focused on Procon’s front-line supervision and incorporating change management associated with this adoption.

Speaking to IM on the side lines of the HxGN LIVE Global 2023 event, in Las Vegas, and ahead of his panel appearance on Wednesday (in a panel titled ‘Down Under: Standing Up to the Challenges of Underground Mining’), McVey said the established contract mining model needed to change to accelerate the uptake of new technology in the market.

“Inherently when we bid for work it has to be competitively tendered in order to try and win a new contract,” he said. “You aren’t typically able to add many bells and whistles on if you want to win the work.

“This likely has to change at some point, with mining companies understanding the benefits that come with rolling out and applying these new technology ‘bells and whistles’.”

Procon has seen glimpses of an evolution – McVey references the introduction of battery-electric trucks at the Brucejack mine in British Columbia, Canada, where Procon is working, plus the use of autonomous load and haul equipment at the Kittilä operation in Finland (where Procon previously carried out shaft work) – but he said that today these were the exception, not the rule.

“Where we may also see more mining technology being adopted in the future is with these junior developers striving for higher ESG (environmental, social and governance) goals,” McVey said. “These clean, green metal developers – due to these ESG aims – are often backed by different types of investors that are less risk averse, or less tainted by the project capital and schedule blowouts experienced in previous commodity cycles.”

McVey’s appearance at HxGN LIVE Global 2023 this week is centred around finding out how the mining technology provider can help Procon’s workers and its clients underground, with safety- and productivity-led solutions coming high up the contract miner’s agenda.

“There is very rarely opposition to bringing in any initiatives that will enhance safety underground,” McVey said. “As a result, it is obvious to start here.”

When it comes to productivity, the company is interested in finding out how it could potentially deploy the Production Optimiser™ solution at certain sites. This advanced mining technology, developed by Minnovare, which Hexagon’s Mining division acquired last year, improves drill and blast efficiency and productivity in underground hard-rock mines by reducing collar deviation and, as a result, delivering superior setup accuracy at the collar. This increases the number of holes drilled to within tolerance at the toe, achieving optimum blasts and reducing dilution, according to Minnovare.

Production Optimiser has been deployed across the mining world, including at sites operated by contract miners Pit N Portal (owned by Emeco Group) and Barminco (part of Perenti).

In addition to productivity and safety, McVey is conscious the graduates coming through the pipeline that may enter the mining sector want to interact with the ‘new technology’ they have become accustomed to.

“They are used to playing computer games, interacting with apps and using technology on a daily basis,” he said. “If we are to encourage them to join the mining sector, we need to adopt some of this to increase our appeal.”

Here McVey mentioned the in-house development of an app, PSAFE, to log all incidents underground. This allows Procon employees to upload photos and reports in close to real time, to enhance reporting and analysis of these incidents.

“While a worker may be somewhat reluctant to write up a report after a long shift underground,” McVey said. “The app – which we are in the process of rolling out across all our sites – is enabling them to capture important information almost immediately, particularly ‘near-miss’ reporting which is critical in avoiding potential hazards and incidents.”

Again, this comes back to the change management piece that is so important to any new technology being adopted and used successfully.

McVey is hoping to learn from other mining companies and contractors at HxGN LIVE Global 2023 about how they are achieving ‘buy in’ from their employees for this new technology, to enhance Procon’s own change management processes and reduce the risk associated with applying new solutions at their sites.