Caterpillar autonomous haul trucks reached another milestone, having moved more than 5.5 billion tons of material using MineStar Command, according to the company.
The company has more than 550 mining trucks equipped with Command for hauling, operating across three continents.
“In 2013, we placed our first fleets of autonomous trucks in Western Australia at FMG Solomon and BHP Jimblebar,” said Denise Johnson, group president of Caterpillar Resource Industries, in a prepared statement. “Since that time, trucks using Command for hauling have safely traveled nearly 200 million km (124.3 million miles), more than twice the experience in autonomous operations of any automobile manufacturer.
“Caterpillar has grown the number of autonomous trucks in operation by 40 percent in the past two years,” she said. “We believe that automation is one of many keys to implement technology that unlocks the value miners need when it comes to the energy transition toward more sustainable operations.”
Thirteen customers at 23 different locations have full site autonomous haulage solutions, according to the company, hauling materials such as oil sands, copper, gold, coal, lithium, and phosphate. Cat 789D, 793D, 793F, 797F, and electric drive 794 AC and 798 AC mining trucks are capable of fully autonomous operation. Retrofit kits allow miners to expand Command for hauling to existing Cat mining trucks.
Source: Trimble Caterpillar
