Driverless trucks roam Australian mines

[FarCenter]

Mining company Rio Tinto has turned to driverless trucks to operate mines in Western Australia.

The multinational digger has just confirmed it has let the trucks roam free at the Nammuldi iron ore mine, a hole in the ground located in more or less the middle of nowhere, as the nearest town, Tom Price, is 60km away. Nammuldi and Tom Price's climates are unrelentingly unpleasant. Workers are hard to come by and the cost of living is high. Even those hardy folk that do work on site often do so on a 'fly-in, fly-out' basis that sees them spend a fortnight or so on site before retreating to a more pleasant locale.

Bots of any sort are therefore a very sensible idea.

One of the world's largest mining truck manufacturers, Komatsu, twigged to this a while ago and created an 'Autonomous Haulage System' dubbed 'Frontrunner' that sees its flagship 930E dump truck 'driven' by GPS.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/26/autonomous_mining_trucks/

[TlalocW]

1. Aw

I was hoping for a good ghost story... Phantom trucks seen around mines in Australia... aimlessly roaming the badlands... silent motors, the only sound being a mournful, "ooooooooo CRIKEY! oooooooooo"

TlalocW

[allan01]

2. re:Driverless trucks roam Australian mines

couldnt help myself

[B Calm]

3. Big Deal! We have remote control trains!

I was backed into a dock at one of our factories, and the RR crossing lights came on, on the road in front of me. When the train crossed the crossing I noticed no one was operating the train. A little bit later a guy was walking along side the train with a remote control. I got out of my truck and talked to him and he said that the RR was saving money by doing away with the engineer.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. This will eventually be brought to other markets.

This is going to eat into human labor. (already has)

Plan accordingly.