EACON proudly announces the achievement of 500+ days of safe operations with its Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) project at the Zhundong Open-Pit Coal Mine, setting a new benchmark for autonomous driving in open-pit mines. This milestone presents EACON’s commitment to safety and reliability, demonstrating the capability of its autonomous solution to operate effectively even in extreme conditions, with surface temperatures ranging from as high as 60℃ to as low as -40℃.
Key Success Factors:
- Rich experience in Autonomous Haulage: EACON has rich experience in driving autonomy in mining applications. It can provide mines a mature and comprehensive solution, at Zhundong Open-pit Coal Mine, EACON has already achieved 500+ days of safe operation with normalized no safety drivers on board since June 2022. At the moment, autonomous 90t payload trucks have reached the maximum speed limit (35km/h) specified by the mine site. The cumulative autonomy transportation mileage has surpassed 800,000 km, constituting 50% of CHN Energy’s total autonomy haulage mileage.
- Intelligent Fleet Management System (FMS): EACON addresses the pivotal challenge of enhancing transportation productivity while prioritizing safety through its intelligent Fleet Management System (FMS). This system has played a crucial role in transitioning autonomous mining from limited trial phases to large-scale commercial operations. The FMS excels in dynamically dispatching multiple trucks, which can adapt to changing production demands, and ensure optimal haul capacity. Controllers benefit from real-time 3D visualization, enabling continously comprehensive monitoring of the entire mine. The FMS also supports high-definition maps management, which can dynamically update maps based on sensors data from autonomous trucks.
- High Operation Productivity: In some of the current projects of EACON AHS, productivity has increased by 5% to 15%. The autonomous daily effective operation time has reached an impressive 21-22 hours, significantly surpassing the traditional manned driving operation average of 2-3 hours.
As a trailblazer in advanced technologies, EACON intends to leverage the success achieved at the Zhundong mine as a benchmark for expanding its Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) to more mining projects in the world.