A fleet of 100 Huaneng Ruichi autonomous electric-powered mining trucks, the first of its type in the world, has officially entered operation at the Yimin open-pit mine in Inner Mongolia, China.
Powered by a 5G-advanced (5G-A) network, the mine became the world’s first open-pit mine to attain huge-scale vehicle-cloud-community synergy, which has significantly stepped forward production safety and set a new benchmark for intelligent mining.
As coal is China’s primary electricity supply and key to its power strategy, the country has been using the transition towards a high-end, wise, and green coal industry. To this end, China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd. (China Huaneng) has partnered with Xuzhou Production Machinery Group Co., Ltd. (XCMG), Huawei Technology Co., Ltd. (Huawei), and State Grid Smart Internet of Motors Co., Ltd. on a joint innovation project to develop the world’s first 0-carbon, autonomous, and intelligent open-pit mine transportation machine, which pioneers high-quality enterprise improvement.
Li Shuxue, chairman of Huaneng Inner Mongolia Eastern Energy Co., Ltd., said on Thursday that the agency is actively implementing the new national energy security strategy and working to drive a strength transition in mining transportation. As a key part of these efforts, it is replacing fuel vehicles with electric ones to construct secure, wise, and green mines.
Supported via technological innovations, the Huaneng Ruichi vehicles have set three new facts for autonomous electric mining trucks: the world’s biggest payload, fastest running speed, and lowest operating temperature. Specifically, every truck has the capacity to carry a load of 90 metric tons and can function continuously in harsh cold conditions of -40°C while achieving 120% of the overall operational efficiency of a manually operated truck.
Likewise, Huawei Cloud offers the commercial vehicle autonomous driving cloud service (CVADCS) that relies on a crowdsourced map for real-time updates of operational areas. This enables fast course optimization, reduces waiting times, and improves operational performance, maximizing the strengths of collaborative truck fleet operations.
Furthermore, because the first autonomous mining truck in China without a driver’s cabin, Huaneng Ruichi, prioritizes personnel protection above all else, preserving them far away from equipment risks and harsh environments to substantially reduce related dangers.
Read more: China and Russia plan to build nuclear power station on moon without human crew
It is a paramount challenge to protect personnel and device safety while enhancing productivity in intense operating conditions such as freezing temperatures at excessive altitudes and heavy rain, snow, and dust. Addressing such challenges places high necessities on intelligent sensing, data processing, and system collaboration talents.
Zhang Ping’an, executive director of Huawei and CEO of Huawei’s Cloud Computing business unit, cited that Huawei has developed AI algorithms for open-pit mining. These algorithms enable precise sensing for autonomous vehicles and efficient collaboration on the cloud that is uniquely ideal for accelerating the coal mining enterprise’s transition from guided to intelligent operations.
This success case is an example of how digital and intelligent technologies can pressure the high-quality development of the coal mining industry. It is not only a lighthouse assignment that demonstrates China’s innovative integration of 5G, cloud, AI, and new energy technologies, however an exploration into how AI can be used to address pressing challenges in precise enterprise scenarios.
The 5G-A network is deployed in the Yimin mining area to offer unique network insurance for autonomous driving routes, achieving easy vehicle-cloud synergy. It is the sector’s first open-pit mine powered by 5G-A, featuring 500 Mbps uplink and 20 ms latency, and presenting strong network support for HD video backhaul and cloud-based dispatching of autonomous mining trucks.
In the future, 5G-A coverage will help 24/7 operations of more than 300 autonomous mining trucks within the mining location, further enhancing protection and performance.
Moving ahead, Huawei will work alongside partners like China Huaneng, XCMG, and State Grid Smart Internet of Automobiles Co., Ltd. to convert and improve mine-transportation devices and build safe, efficient, green, and 0-carbon intelligent mines. Together, they’ll maintain their attraction to the successful experience of the Yimin mine to facilitate digital and intelligent transformation of the global energy industry.