The Solomon Hub Kings iron mine, located in the Australian region Pilbara and managed by the company Fortescue Metals Group, has a new fleet of autonomous trucks installed by Caterpillar. The two companies signed a deal back in July, which included the complete MineStar technology suite, in order to modernize the operation. At the time, Caterpillar’s vice president, Chris Curfman, … Read more
Imagine if a 50-foot robot truck could take dangerous work away from human miners… That’s exactly what is happening in the mines operated by the major company Rio Tinto. In Australian pits, there’s a series of robotic trucks that load, haul and dump ore and waste rock at open pit mines, a job that used … Read more
The surface mining industry has just overcome a new milestone: a surface production drill completed a computer-generated drill pattern without human interaction for the first time ever. The Atlas Copco D65 crawler-mounted and articulated drill – developed by Atlas Copco Australia after a partnership with Rio Tinto – levelled, drilled and moved between rows as directed by computer-generated instructions. … Read more