Cement Energy and Environment

But this project is about far more than a herd of heavyweight robots, impressive though they may be. It is, says James Petty, general manager, Mine of the Future TM, Rio Tinto Iron Ore: ..a total system. It's about machines operating in a very smart environment.·· The whole mining operation is planned in advance and is dynamic. It has a memory. It learns. It anticipates trouble and responds . Its neural paths interlink at light-speed. It functions like a brain the size of an iron ore province, coordinated by the ..control towe(, the Operations Centre in Perth. Autonomous trucks Over the coming three years, the plan is for the ten initial Komatsu 930E 290-tonne Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) trucks to be joined by 140 others, following the signing in November 2011 of a memorandum of understanding between Rio Tinto and Komatsu Limited president and CEO, Kunia Noji. These will form up as the largest driverless mining 1leet in the world, and rumble into action at nine new iron ore mines, each individually landscaped from the start for automation. Contrary to popular ideas about automation, there are still people in the pit - just fewer than before, and performing different tasks. The diggers, graders and dozers are still operated by humans and there are supervisors and controllers - but the workforce that runs autonomous trucks is less than half that of a manned fleet. Even the water cart that lays the dust is scheduled for automation. Ten autonomous Komatsu trucks are deployed at Yandicoogina. Two or three years after that, the combined fleet will reach 150. Consistency and reliability A similar transformation is on the cards for the Terex SKSS15 rigs that drill the blasting pattern. Three are in current operation , controlled from an autonomous vehicle on site. By 2017 Rio Tinto will have almost all of its drill rigs ..autonomous-read{, with a single operator controlling several, eventually from Perth, and sinking over a million holes a year. A growing fleet of smart explosives trucks will prime the shot-holes with pre!cisely the right charge, based on information fed back to them by the drill rig. Not only will the drill sense rock hardness, the rigs will eventually carry an on– board sampler and chemical analyser to assay and record the ore being drilled, and link up with a roving rock-face inspection system. Besides shaping the explosion to precisely the geography and geology of the site while using minimal propellant, the automated procedure has important implications for Rio Tinto 's customers, half a world away. James Petty explains why understanding the precise nature of the ore to be mined enables the entire process of mi.1ing, crushing, blending, stockpiling, transport and delivery to be performed with silken smoothness: ..Ifs a step-change in orebody knowledge. Knowing what we 're about to mine from any given pit enables us to model the supply-demand pipeline in detail and in advance - ores can be blended at source to suit customer requirements with reduced dependence on stockpiles either at the mine or at the port. This saves time, handling and costs. It's more consistent and more reliable. It adds up to improved quality management:· he explains. A vital link in the automated chain will be supplied by the driverless trains and automatic car loaders and unloaders, collectively known as AutoHauPM, which are scheduled to enter service over the next two to three years. This half-billion– dollar enterprise will become the world 's first fully– automated, heavy-haul rail operation, running more than 40 trains (comprising 10,000 ore cars in total) on an extensive 1,300 km rail network across the Pilbara. Workforce expansion Contrary to popular imagining, automation needn 't involve the loss of jobs - in fact Greg Lilleyman, president, Pilbara Operations, expects the workforce to grow by several thousand in coming years as more and more automated mines come on stream. Existing mines are not really designed for automation, and will continue to be operated manually for the foreseeable future. An automated mine is laid out differently to enable the 40