Autonomy Of Things – Becoming Mainstream At A Mine Near You!

Autonomy Of Things – Becoming Mainstream At A Mine Near You! Subscribe To Newsletters BETA THIS IS A BETA EXPERIENCE. OPT-OUT HERE More From Forbes Jan 2, 2025, 09:17am EST With Cruise In Rear-View Mirror, Robotaxis Power On Across The Globe Jan 2, 2025, 08:30am EST Dashcams And Smart Cars Solve The Self-Driving Mapping Problem Dec 31, 2024, 01:26pm EST Transportation Trends To Watch In 2025: Navigating The New Landscape Dec 31, 2024, 09:00am EST Food Delivery Robots Are #OpenForWork Dec 31, 2024, 07:00am EST 5 Predictions For The Auto Industry In 2025 Dec 30, 2024, 02:21pm EST Lilium’s Electric Air Taxi Dreams Retake Flight—Hopefully Dec 29, 2024, 05:54pm EST The Death Of A Legend: How Jimmy Carter Influenced The Auto Industry Dec 29, 2024, 08:59am EST VW Restructuring Talks Produce Union Win, But Share Price Unfazed Edit Story Forbes Innovation Transportation Autonomy Of Things – Becoming Mainstream At A Mine Near You! Sabbir Rangwala Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I write about perception, sensors and LIDAR for autonomous vehicles, drones and robots Following Jan 2, 2025, 12:34pm EST Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Autonomous dump trucks carry iron ore at the N4E Autonomous mine of the Brazilian mining company … [+] VALE, part of the Carajas Mining Complex, municipality of Parauapebas, Para state, Brazil on May 15, 2023. (Photo by MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP) (Photo by MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images Autonomous cars steal the headlines in public discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) and physical AI. It is a tough endeavor, which is gaining traction after a decade of effort and billions of dollars in funding. Waymo is offering commercial ride hailing services in multiple fair weather cities in the United States (Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin). Aurora and other companies are working hard at making highway autonomous trucking a reality. Nuro and Gatik continue driving lower speed autonomy for local logistics and food delivery. Multiple autonomous ride hailing services are operational in China (Baidu, Didi, etc.). Tesla continues to tease the possibilities of consumer owned autonomous cars. Autonomous cars are a difficult endeavor, primarily because guaranteeing zero safety-related incidents in uncontrolled environments with pedestrians, human driven cars and other traffic obstacles is difficult and public acceptance of these vehicles has to still mature. To date, the demonstrated business results are meager and slow. An extensive analysis of autonomous driving test data is sobering – gaps remain even in “mature” markets like San Francisco where the city government is trying to slow deployment of autonomous vehicles due to various public safety related incidents like inappropriate braking, driving the wrong way on one-way streets, blocking emergency vehicles and pedestrian injuries. The public relation disasters due to Uber and GM-Cruise fatalities created significant backlash including shutdown of their driverless car initiatives (General Motors announced in December 2024 that it was shutting down its robotaxi autonomy efforts), and vandalism and spoofing of autonomous vehicles. Meanwhile, the Autonomy of Things (AoT™) revolution continues to grow and is becoming mainstream in applications that are not so public and more controlled – for example autonomous race cars and agriculture where pedestrians and random traffic obstacles are absent, assuring safety of people, infrastructure and equipment. AoT™ in Action – Mining and Quarrying Mining (typically material removal over large tracts if land in remote areas for coal and metal ore deposits) and quarrying (smaller tracts of land in populated areas for stone, dirt and building materials) have seen increased autonomy over the past 15 years , with the number of autonomous mining vehicles having quadrupled to 2000 in the past 4 years. The equipment leaders in this autonomy growth are Caterpillar and Komatsu. MORE FOR YOU Ukraine’s Newest Leopard 2 Brigade Began Disintegrating Before It Reached The Front Line New Orleans Truck Attack: FBI Now Believes Suspect Acted Alone (Live Updates) Apple Watch Series 10 Price Slashed To All-Time Low In New Sale Figure 1: A Cat Wheel Loader Operated by Remote Control on a Barge Caterpillar Caterpillar has been working in the autonomous mining space for the past 30 years, and has pioneered autonomy in operations ranging from material hauling to drilling, digging, loading, and processing of mined material. It recently announced a collaboration with Luck Stone Quarry at its Chantilly, VA plant for autonomous hauling of crushed stone and other building materials using its Cat® 777 off-highway truck (see Figure 1). Figure 1: Caterpillar has successfully demonstrated the fully autonomous operation of its Cat® 777 … [+] off-highway truck, with Cat® MineStar™ Command for hauling, at Luck Stone’s Bull Run plant in Chantilly, Virginia. Caterpillar and Luck Stone Denise Johnson is the Group President of Resources Industries (a $12.5B business unit within Caterpillar which also has two larger business units – Energy and & Transportation and Construction). Mining sites are generally located in remote areas and can run 24×7 with some sites having as many as 150 large haulage trucks. Quarries are located in urban or semi-urban areas which restrict hours of operation (8-10 hours/day), require 3-5 smaller trucks and need to minimize noise and air pollution. In both cases, skilled labor is scarce either because of the remote location and quality of life issues, or competition for the labor force from high technology and other industries. Solving the manpower issue, along with enhanced safety, optimized operational flows and consistent equipment performance on a 7 day x 24 hour basis are the key customer benefits. Collision detection is a key imperative as is understanding the location of assets and people. Tracking different weather conditions and its impact on wheel slippage and traction control is an important consideration. Fleet electrification is an emerging area of innovation at Caterpillar as it helps customers achieve productivity metrics and reduce pollution. Finally, a fleet management system that coordinates movement and location of material haulage is critical to ensure balanced line operations between excavation, haulage and processing. Scaling more complex equipment, autonomy stacks and software from the larger mining to the smaller quarry environments is an important initiative for Caterpillar as it grows its autonomy operations in this sector (costs and complexity need to scale down by ~10X). According to Ms. Johnson: “this work between Luck Stone and Caterpillar is meaningful not just for Bull Run operations, but for our customers of all sizes as we develop new technologies to serve the quarry and aggregates as well as construction industries. This hands-on collaboration has accelerated our ability to scale our proven mining solution for this sector.” As opposed to autonomous ride hailing cars where the main focus is to remove the human driver for cost efficiencies, the key driver for autonomy for customers like Luck Stone (a family owned business established 100 years ago with operations spread across multiple US states) are employee recruitment and retention, along with safety assurance and operational efficiency improvement. As Travis Chewning, Vice President of Engineering and Operations puts it: “We believe that by collaborating with Caterpillar and staying at the forefront of advancements, we are creating opportunities for our associates to learn and grow. Our motivation to participate in this project is rooted in positively impacting people. Increasing digital competency among our associates will provide growth opportunities, drive change, inspire innovative thinking, and stimulate creativity. In addition, utilizing the newest technologies available allows us to continue to innovate and be a leader in the aggregates industry. We’re excited for what’s next.” An important aspect mentioned by Mr. Chewning is that autonomy allowed for predictive maintenance of the equipment, further improving operational efficiency. The quest to make their business a more attractive place to work is driven by the changing demographics of the evolving workforce for his business – from agricultural workers with hard equipment skills to tech savvy workers who want to be challenged by new frontiers in autonomy, AI and sensing. The AoT™ revolution is alive an well in controlled and semi-controlled environments like mining and quarrying. The business drivers are about safety, operational efficiency, minimizing human activity in hazardous environments, and recruiting and retaining a high quality workforce. As these applications mature and become more visible, they can increase public trust and acceptance of more people impacting autonomy initiatives like road transportation. Follow me on LinkedIn . AoT™ is a trademark of Patience Consulting LLC Sabbir Rangwala Following Editorial Standards Forbes Accolades Join The Conversation Comments One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. Read our community guidelines here . Forbes Community Guidelines Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space. In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site’s Terms of Service. We’ve summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil. 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