Examples of supervised and fully autonomous heavy equipment continue to pop up in various applications, including earthmoving, mining, and snow and ice removal. Now, another fully autonomous haulage system (AHS) is set to be deployed to handle construction aggregates.
Unlike supervised autonomy, fully autonomous machines do not require a human being's intevention via remote control and instead lift, carry, and unload at the press of a button.
Autonomous systems provider Pronto AI plans to deploy its AHS at Heidelberg Materials Lake Bridgeport quarry in Texas in collaboration with Heidelberg Materials North America. The move follows what the company calls a "successful" pilot of Pronto’s technology at the same quarry, which was conducted in partnership with Komatsu North America.
In the initial pilot, Pronto and Heidelberg Materials retrofitted a Komatsu HD605-8 with the AHS, with Heidelberg seeing a few key benefits according to a LinkedIn post from the company:
- Technology: AHS ensures precise movements, even under difficult conditions.
- Efficiency: We can optimize plant capacity utilization.
- Safety: The system reduces risks for our team.
- Sustainability: AHS helps us to become even more sustainable.
Pronto cites safety and sustainability as two of the core reasons it has focused on the mining and quarry markets. Like others, it also points to autonomy as a way to assist with ongoing labor shortages.
"Pronto is focused on the mining and quarrying markets because, unlike on-road environments, autonomous vehicle technology is mature enough to safely commercialize fully driverless in those settings," said Christian Kurasek, CEO. "As we move towards carbon-neutral forms of energy, massive incremental volumes of transition minerals need to be produced, at the same time the industry is facing an acute labor shortage. In a world where everything is either grown or mined, Pronto’s AHS...ensur[es] everything can be extracted in a cost-effective, environmentally friendly, and safe manner."
As the technology becomes more prevalent, especially in the mining space, fleet managers face concerns of pricing and implementation on construction sites. Kurasek cited statistics that said autonomy could be a worthwhile asset.
