The green and digital transformation of mining
A simultaneous green and digital transition will increase sustainability, mitigate the impact of climate change and move us towards a carbon-neutral EU by 2050. While the conversation often centres on topics like transport, buildings and factories, tremendous opportunity exists virtually everywhere, including places and sectors not often targeted. The ambitious and pioneering NEXGEN-SIMS project has contributed by paving the way to safe, sustainable, digitised and autonomous mining and mineral extraction leveraging battery-powered autonomous vehicles with AI-powered fleet optimisation in an interconnected environment.
Battery-powered autonomous machines: faster, safer access
Mining is essential to the provision of the mineral and metal commodities we use to produce myriad goods that strengthen our economies and improve our quality of life. Historically, mining has required humans to drill and blast, to build new shafts and air vents, to extract ore and load it onto carriers, and to operate heavy, often diesel-powered machinery and equipment needed for these tasks. Considerable progress has been made in supporting workers with machines that are partially or totally automated – but this is just the tip of the iceberg of what is possible. NEXGEN-SIMS has contributed to catapulting mining into a green and digital future. “Our machines are battery-powered and driven completely autonomously with no human interaction, allowing us to keep humans away from potentially dangerous zones in underground mines. Further, these machines can navigate and access more rugged areas sooner after blasting. Utilising drones to assess gases and the distribution of muck pile (the pile of mineral or rock obtained after blasting) further supports safety and faster access,” explains project coordinator Jan Gustafsson of Epiroc Rock Drills.
Mining blasts its way into the future: 5G and human-machine collaboration
During the project's pilots, the machines and infrastructure were equipped with devices operating with 5G wireless cellular technology, creating an Internet of Things in tomorrow’s modernised and sustainable mines. The project also researched and verified machines’ operation in defined mixed-traffic scenarios, specifically when an autonomous vehicle meets a manually driven one in two-way traffic. This collaboration required communication via uninterrupted connectivity and will be an enabler of future human-machine collaborative systems, given that humans will have increasingly critical roles in an era of increasing technological sophistication.
Green and digital augment sustainability and reduce costs
Rolling out 5G in the depths of the Earth and running an autonomous factory down there is no small task and could have raised stakeholder concerns about costs. NEXGEN-SIMS has laid these potential concerns to rest. Gustafsson explains: “Keeping mines well ventilated for the humans working in them accounts for the largest share of operating costs due to the energy needed to do so. The ventilation requirement is further increased using diesel-powered machinery. By substituting diesel-powered machinery with autonomous battery-powered vehicles, NEXGEN-SIMS has tremendously reduced ventilation needs and costs while simultaneously decreasing energy consumption and emissions. Autonomously driven machines also enable increased machine utilisation and thus lower material handling costs.” NEXGEN-SIMS has developed strategies for the safe introduction of autonomous carbon-neutral (battery-powered) mining machinery and the required infrastructure for a fully digitally connected mine. These have been tested in a real mining environment (mining pilots) at Agnico Eagle in northern Finland. With added focus on reducing investment risk and increasing stakeholder confidence, the project has made an important contribution to mining’s green and digital transformation.
Keywords
NEXGEN-SIMS, mining, battery-powered vehicles, 5G, autonomous machines, mineral extraction, AI, Internet of Things, autonomous vehicle
