How mines control driverless trucks

It doesn’t get any further than that. I’m at Rio Tinto’s Great Nnamdi iron ore mine in outback Western Australia.

It’s about two hours’ flight north from Perth to the Pilbara region.

No one lives here permanently. There are approximately 400 workers on site at any one time, who arrive by plane, work four to eight days based on a shift pattern, and then fly home.

Giant trucks the size of townhouses are capable of transporting 300 tons on the red dirt roads that crisscross various areas of the open-pit mine.

Their size is intimidating enough for an outsider like me, but what doubles the feeling is knowing there’s no driver behind the wheel.

While visiting the site in a normal-sized company vehicle, a truck came into view from a side road.

I breathed a sigh of relief when it turned deftly and continued in the direction we had just come. “Does this make you uncomfortable?” asked Dwane Pallentine, the vehicle’s driver and production supervisor.

Greater Nammuldi has a fleet of more than 50 self-driving trucks that operate independently on predefined routes, as well as a handful that are still manually driven and work individually in different parts of the mine.

Also being trialled is an automatic water truck, affectionately known as “Henry”, which works with a manual water truck to spray water onto the mine roads to reduce dust.

The company vehicle I was riding in was able to operate with the self-driving truck only because it was equipped with a high-precision GPS that could see it in the virtual system.

Before entering the mine’s closed autonomous zone, we logged into the system and the controller verified our visibility via radio.

It wraps our vehicles in a virtual bubble that self-driving trucks can “see”, allowing them to manage their proximity by slowing down or stopping as needed.

Touchscreens in our cabins display all nearby crewed self-driving vehicles and other equipment, as well as “clearance lines” that show the direct route the self-driving truck intends to travel. If I looked at the screen instead of worrying, I would see the truck turning.

In addition to all vehicles being equipped with large red emergency buttons that can stop the system, the self-driving trucks also have lasers and radars on the front and rear to detect the risk of a collision.

The sensor can also detect obstacles. If a large rock falls from the back of a truck, sensors on the truck next to it will notice it and the vehicle will stop.

However, some trucks seem to be particularly sensitive – during my travels I saw several trucks hampered simply by rough roads.

Rio Tinto’s Operations Center (OC), located approximately 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) south of Perth, coordinates and monitors the robots.

It is the nerve center for all of the company’s Pilbara iron ore operations, which has 17 mines, including the three that make up Greater Nammuldi.

Includes more than 360 self-driving trucks across all locations (approximately 84% of the total fleet is automated) under the direction of a controller; a largely autonomous long-distance rail network for transporting mined ore to port facilities; and Nearly 40 self-guided training sessions. OC staff also control plant and port functions remotely.

Autonomy is not new to Rio Tinto’s Pilbara operations: it has been introduced since the late 2000s.

It’s not unique, either: Australia has the largest fleet of autonomous trucks and other mining equipment in the world, and other mining companies in the Pilbara also use the technology.

But Rio Tinto’s growing presence here, including in Greater Namurdi, which has one of the world’s largest fleets of self-driving trucks, gives it global importance.

This is a global trend. According to global data The number of autonomous delivery trucks globally has roughly quadrupled in the past four years to more than 2,000, with most made by Caterpillar or Komatsu.

Matthew Holcz, general manager of the company’s Pilbara mines, said the biggest reason for introducing the technology was to improve employee safety.

Mining is a dangerous occupation: operators of heavy machinery can operate unexpectedly, and operators can become fatigued. “The data clearly shows that through automation, our business becomes more secure,” Mr. Holtz said.

It also increases productivity—by about 15 percent, he estimates. Since there are no gaps due to shifts or breaks, autonomous equipment can be used more. Autonomous trucks can also travel faster when there are fewer people on site to operate the equipment.

This kind of automation doesn’t come cheap. Rio Tinto will not disclose total spending so far on its Pilbara automation journey, but observers estimate it to be in the billions of dollars.

At the same time, employment opportunities have also changed. The story might be that robots take away jobs, but so far, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Although OC has about one controller for every 25 self-driving trucks, according to Rio, no one has lost their job due to automation.

Instead, they redeployed: Truck drivers joined OC as controllers and were reskilled in operating different equipment such as excavators, loaders and dozers, or traveled to different locations to drive manual trucks.

On the OC’s large open floor plan, among clusters of monitors arranged for different mines, I met Jess Cowie, who used to be a hand driller but now drills holes from the center The pod directs the automatic drilling machine. “I still make holes in the ground … just without the dust, the noise and being away from my family,” she said.

Robin Burgess-Limerick, a professor at the University of Queensland in Brisbane who studies human factors in mining, said automation was bringing a “step change” to safety in the mining industry. But that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement.

Professor Burgess-Limerick analyzed incidents reported to regulators involving autonomous devices.

In his view, the interfaces used by field and control center staff to obtain information were not optimally designed. There have been instances where field staff lost awareness of the situation, and better screen design might have prevented this. “Technology designers should spend more energy thinking about people,” he said.

There is also a risk of overloading the controllers – a busy, high-risk job.

Overtrust can also be an issue, with people becoming so confident that self-driving devices will stop that they start putting themselves at risk, he said, noting that work needs to be done to improve the ability of the trucks themselves to detect moisture. There have been incidents where vehicles lost traction on slippery roads.

Shane Roulstone, coordinator of the Western Union of Mineworkers, which represents Pilbara mining-related workers, said there could be legitimate safety concerns with autonomous equipment.

He pointed to a serious incident in May this year when a self-driving train crashed into the back of a broken-down train while workers on the front end were repairing the train (they evacuated before the impact but were still in shock).

But Mr Roulston also generally praised Rio Tinto for developing “some good strategies, procedures and policies” over time around how people interact with self-driving cars.

Roulston expects that at some point, redeployment options will be reduced and job losses will occur. “It’s just math,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rio Tinto’s automation journey continues in the Pilbara, with more trucks, drills and Henry water trucks. It also closely follows efforts by Komatsu and Caterpillar to develop unmanned backhoes, loaders and dozers.

Late in the afternoon, I was at Great Namudi Airport waiting for the last flight back to Perth, only to learn that the flight had been canceled due to aircraft issues. An additional 150 people now need food and accommodation. That’s fine with Rio, but I can’t help but think that we humans are complex compared to robots.