A new benchmark in intelligent mining has been set at the Yimin open-pit mine in Inner Mongolia, China, with a fleet of 100 Huaneng Ruichi autonomous electric mining trucks entering into operation.
The fleet represents a pioneering achievement in large-scale vehicle-cloud-network synergy, helping to improve production safety at the 5G-Advanced (5G-A) powered mine.
Coal is critical for China’s energy security, serving as the country’s primary energy source. For this reason, China is transitioning the coal sector to become more intelligent and greener. To this end, China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd. (China Huaneng) has partnered with Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group Co., Ltd. (XCMG), Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei), and State Grid Smart Internet of Vehicles Co., Ltd. on a joint innovation project to develop the world's first zero-carbon, autonomous, and intelligent open-pit mine transportation system.
Li Shuxue, Chairman of Huaneng Inner Mongolia Eastern Energy Co., Ltd., stated that the company is actively implementing the new national energy security strategy and working to drive an energy transition in mining transportation. As a key part of these efforts, it is replacing fuel vehicles with electric ones to build safe, intelligent, and green mines.
Supported by technological innovations, the Huaneng Ruichi trucks have set three new records for autonomous electric mining trucks: the world's largest payload, fastest running speed, and lowest operating temperature. Each truck can carry a load of 90 metric tons and operate continually in extreme cold of –40°C, while delivering 120% of the comprehensive operational efficiency of a manually-driven truck. In addition, Huawei Cloud provides the Commercial Vehicle Autonomous Driving Cloud Service (CVADCS) that uses a crowdsourced map for real-time operational location updates. This enables fast route optimization, reduces waiting times, and improves operational efficiency, maximizing the strengths of collaborative truck fleet operations.
Furthermore, as the first autonomous mining truck in China without a driver's cabin, Huaneng Ruichi prioritises personnel safety, ensuring staff are kept safe from equipment hazards and harsh environments such as freezing temperatures at high altitudes, and heavy rain, snow, and dust. Addressing such challenges places high requirements on intelligent sensing, data processing, and system collaboration capabilities.
Zhang Ping'an, Executive Director of Huawei and CEO of Huawei's Cloud Computing Business Unit, explained that the vendor has developed AI algorithms for open-pit mining which enable precise sensing for autonomous vehicles and efficient collaboration on the cloud. This is uniquely suited to accelerating the coal mining industry's transition from manual to intelligent operations; this successful case provides an example of how digital and intelligent technologies can drive the high-quality development of the coal mining industry. It is not only a lighthouse project that demonstrates China's innovative integration of 5G, cloud, AI, and new energy technologies, but an exploration into how AI can be used to tackle pressing challenges in specific industry scenarios.
The 5G-A network is deployed in the Yimin mining area to provide precise network coverage for autonomous driving routes, achieving smooth vehicle-cloud synergy. The network offers 500 Mbps uplink and 20 ms latency, providing solid network support for HD video backhaul and cloud-based dispatching of autonomous mining trucks. In the future, 5G-A coverage will support 24/7 operations of more than 300 autonomous mining trucks in the mining area, further improving safety and efficiency.
Moving forward, Huawei will work alongside partners like China Huaneng, XCMG, and State Grid Smart Internet of Vehicles Co., Ltd. to transform and upgrade mine-transportation equipment, and build safe, efficient, green, and zero-carbon intelligent mines. Together, they will continue to draw on the successful experience of the Yimin mine to facilitate digital and intelligent transformation of the global energy industry.
