A fleet of 100 electric driverless coal-mining trucks has been put into operation in Mongolia, coordinated by AI running on a 5G-A network. The project is expected to grow, bringing new safety and efficiency to China's coal-mining industry.
While the negative environmental impacts of coal are well known, the substance is still very much in use as a fuel source around the globe. According to Enerdata, the global growth of coal use has cooled from about 6% in 2022 to about 2.2% in 2023. But in China, India, and Vietnam, use of the energy source has surged during the same period with growth rates equaling 6.9%, 9.9%, and 25% respectively. India and China now account for 71% of global coal consumption, with the latter currently developing 1,280 million tonnes per year of new mining capacity – which is about half of the world's proposed capacity.
It makes sense, therefore, that China would be looking at ways to make coal mining safer, greener, and more efficient.
Enter the Huaneng Ruichi fleet, a squadron of 100 unmanned electric mining trucks that have recently begun operating at the Yimin open-pit mine in Inner Mongolia. The trucks were deployed by China's energy giant, the Huaneng Group.
Each truck is able to cart around 90 metric tons of coal and can operate in temperatures that plummet as low as -40 °C (-40 °F), not the norm in Inner Mongolia, but certainly not unheard of. The electric haulers operate in concert thanks to connectivity provided over a 5G-Advanced (5G-A) mobile network. 5G-A technology features faster data transmission speeds and lower latency, as evidenced by the project's 500 Mbps upload speeds and 20 millisecond latency rate. The Commercial Vehicle Autonomous Driving Cloud Service, the AI system that handles the processing of the robotruck locations and operations, was provided by Huawei.
"As the first autonomous mining truck in China without a driver's cabin, Huaneng Ruichi places personnel safety above all else, keeping them away from equipment hazards and harsh environments to greatly reduce related risks," says a statement from Huawei. "It is a paramount challenge to safeguard personnel and equipment safety while improving productivity in extreme working conditions such as freezing temperatures at high altitudes, and heavy rain, snow, and dust. Addressing such challenges places high requirements on data processing and system collaboration capabilities."
Representatives from the Huaneng Group say that the Huaneng Ruichi fleet is the largest single deployment of driverless electric mining trucks in the world and that the vehicles could improve efficiency at the mine by about 20%. The project is also claiming the title of being the world's first open-pit mine powered by 5G-A technology. The system is expected to eventually support a fleet of 300 robo-miners, which will be deployed in the future.
Sources: Huawei, South China Morning Post
