Driverless trucks roam Australian mines 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 …
Amazingly these systems pay for themselves purely in tire wear. Each tire on these things costs $30,000 and supply is often very very tight. Human (or Australian) drivers will take corners at too high a speed and skid slightly wearing the tires - the robot takes every corner like your maiden aunt, on an advanced driving course, with a hot McDonalds coffee between her legs
They've been used underground for a decade. With pedestrians around you are generally limited to little more than walking pace for scoops (underground haulage) with the level totally empty and just automated trucks you can run as fast as technically possible - 30 or 50km/h
More automation may also be good for the Australian economy as mining will no longer be sucking up people from various professions to go earn a fortune driving big trucks - an inefficient skilled to unskilled drain. There are certainly a few I know - teachers, etc - that will likely end up back in their profession which is good for supply there.
Most of these places are flyin-flyout. You work 7 /10/14 days on and the same off, you live on site and get all meals provided - like an oil rig. The food is good though - surf''n'turf is an easy way to keep your staff happy!
But the site is completely dry - nobody driving 300tonnes of truck worth $5M is getting anywhere near a beer, and expect to get your luggage seriously inspected for drugs - even if you are just a programmer going in to fix something.
If you can handle the boredom of driving at 10km/h for the same 15min round trip for a 12hour shift - you make more than I do as a programmer and half half the year at home.
It's not all bad - worst case is that the fleet of trucks becomes self-aware, learns how to fuel themselves and turns large parts of Australia into a wilderness that's hazardous to human life...
Best case is that the fleet of trucks becomes self-aware, learns how to fuel themselves and starts improving the global gene pool by reducing the Australian contingent....
"It's not all bad - worst case is that the fleet of trucks becomes self-aware, learns how to fuel themselves and turns large parts of Australia into a wilderness that's hazardous to human life..."
Large parts of Australia are already a wilderness that is hazardous to human life.
We have 24 of the top 25 most poisonous snakes. Some pretty good spiders, jellyfish and blue ringed octopus, Ivan Milat and Dannii Minogue...
Hacking? All the joyriding is probably done from the remote control at the Perth facility. It's a good thing they don't have the remote(control) drive at the remote(isolated) site - I doubt it would take long for the few humans out in the middle of nowhere to start playing chicken with the trucks.
I've seen a catalogue of radio-controlled demolition machines- basically full-size 360º diggers fitted with concrete-smashing equipment (though smaller models more resemble a bomb disposal robot). A little boy inside me whooped for joy!
Had I seen it twenty years ago, I would have grabbed a pen and started to write:
"Dear Jim, Can you fix it for me to smash a derelict building to the ground with a massive radio controlled digger?"
But of course you can wire your tunnels for location.
Still, I assume this is work on the surface, or "open cast" mining, i.e. just scrape all of the land off to get at the goodies underneath.
Mining is an unpleaant and frequently deadly job, such as in that case in New Zealand, and many others. (Yes, ruthless unscrupulous negligent mine owners, the same as all the others there have ever been.) Even living near one isn't safe, as in Aberfan. It's a bugger for your community if your kids can't get jobs down the mine like you did, but it's also a pretty poor show if they do. So let robots and remote-controlled machinery do it. Hurrah for the Descent of the Machines.
Mining is a fascinating well paid and generally safe job in most civilised countries ( well Australia and Canada) at least if you stay out of coal mining. Compared to construction or forrestry where people seem to go out of their way to try and kill themselves, deep hard-rock mining is safe as houses.
The main drawback is that the mines are generally in the middle of nowhere, in the sort of town where a fancy night out is the hot dogs at the gas station - they dream of one day getting a McDonalds
Oh they can, and do, get McDonalds. If you ever have the misfortune to get on one of the flights to a FIFO site, you'll be accompanied by many malodorous boxes of their product. They are so treasured by the remote worker that there are some who are willing to eat them cold/reheated. Same goes for carrying Krispy Kreme doughnuts from Sydney airport to Perth (WHY?!?!).
An acquaintance works in Oz part of the year, driving vining machines during harvest season (good money). It takes half an hour to travel from one end to the other, the plains are that huge. All he does is snooze at the wheel and wait for the beeper to warn him that it's nearly time to turn around and go the other way. GPS guidance does everything else.
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