ABSTRACT
There is an industry-wide consensus that mining is getting harder. The sector, in higher income economies at least, is faced with maturing mines and associated grade decreases and haul distance increase. Research indicates that the mining industry is extraordinarily rich in operational, real-time, sensor-derived "big data"; however, the authors see little evidence that this opportunity is being leveraged systematically across the wider mining industry. Autonomous Haulage Systems, which saw the first industrial deployment from 2008 to 2012, potentially offer the next opportunity for step-change productivity improvement in mass material haulage. Advances in computing power, network bandwidth, software development, machine sensors, and competition among the vendor community will serve to lower costs and improve performance, thus, over time opening access to the technology across the wider mining industry. A range of autonomous solutions (loading, dozing, grading, people movement etc.) will find a value-accretive home in the mining industry.
