Rio Tinto will put driverless trucks into a production iron ore mine in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, following a five truck trial in its West Angelas mine.
The company will deploy ten automated Komatsu haul trucks to the Junction South East pit of its Yandicoogina mine. Five of those driverless trucks will be redeployed from West Angelas, where they were limited to dumping ‘waste’ products for the trial. The others will be new vehicles.
At Yandicoogina, the trucks will dump iron ore for the first time, marking a major step in the evolution of the project towards full operational deployment. The ten-truck roll-out is the next phase of the driverless truck portion of Rio Tinto’s Mine of the Future program, which promotes automation and remote control of equipment at mine sites.
Aside from the ten trucks to operate at Yandicoogina, Rio Tinto has ordered another 150 autonomous trucks from Komatsu, to be delivered over the next four years.