A New Era of Mining Efficiency

Sandvik Mining is the world’s leading provider of mine automation technologies with more than 16 automation systems deployed in around seven countries worldwide. It delivers high-quality and reliable fleet automation for drilling, loading and hauling, single loader automation and process/information management systems.

All Sandvik automation products are designed to allow open integration with other IT systems at mine sites. Sandvik automation solutions work close to the customers to ensure mine site and application specific requirements are carefully considered prior to the final system implementation.

Each customer’s goal is to recover product from their mine as safely, efficiently and profitably as possible. Automated mining solutions and associated software innovations are essential for optimizing these goals, whether it’s a small or large-scale mining operation.

Sandvik AutoMine® Product Family is the most comprehensive automation offering for underground mining application. The Product Family covers fleet automation, single loader automation, equipment monitoring and process control systems. The systems are highly innovative automation systems where operators in case of fleet or single loader automation would normally drive a single heavy-duty machine underground, can now sit in the comfort and safety of an air-conditioned control room on surface, and simultaneously monitor the movements of a fleet of driverless loaders or trucks hundreds of meters below the surface. In case of equipment monitoring or process management systems the supervisors on the surface control room are able to monitor and control underground operations and communicate with underground operators. Automation solutions lead to several benefits: increased fleet utilization, improved working conditions and safety, increased production, and reduced maintenance costs due to optimized tramming speeds and smoother equipment operation.

AutoMine®Lite-automated single loader system

AutoMine® Lite is an advanced alternative for tele-remote and radio remote control (RRC) systems. It is designed for fast installation and startup and enables quick relocation from one production area to another. Also, the loader’s automated tramming route is simply taught by a single drive-through between the load and the dump points. An unmanned loader is the perfect solution for hazardous environments. The production area is isolated with a dedicated safety system designed in accordance with functional safety standards.

AutoMine® Lite is an easy way to familiarize the mine operation to automation. It can easily be moved to the new production areas. The setup of the system is designed to be quick and easy. This gives the mine flexibility to utilize AutoMine® Lite in all production areas in the mine. Also it is possible to have several AutoMine® Lite systems operating simultaneously in the different production areas in the mine. From this the good examples are Boliden Garpenberg mine in Sweden, Inmet Mining Pyhäsalmi mine in Finland and our latest Xstrata Kidd Creek mine in Canada.

The AutoMine® Lite system consist of Supervisory system which is the Control room software and hardware, Safety System which dedicated for safety of the operation, Communication system which includes the wireless and wired network and On-board system which covers the automation functionality on the top of the equipment.

The Sandvik AutoMine® products are built on the same core AutoMine® technologies that provide configurable, expandable automation solutions to streamline and standardize workflow while enhancing throughput. The proprietary technologies that drive this reliability and efficiency include:

Semiautonomous mining systems require some interaction from the operator. In the case of loader application it is typically teleremotely controlled bucket filling. Current artificial intelligence solutions are not yet able to perform as well as combination of human brain and eyes to make decision in which angle to approach the ore. The used mining application and the ore have great influence on the fragmentation of the ore which may vary significantly. This sets huge challenge to the system to decide what is the best way to get full bucket. Technology is developing and already there are applications which indicate the inclination of the muck pile and recognise big rocks.

AutoMine® Lite requires operation area isolation. There are two safety standards which define the functional safety level for these types of systems.

For more information: Marty Adams, Global Systems Specialist, Mine Automation; Sandvik Mining