Heavy mining trucks range from huge to immense. BELAZ (a mining truck manufacturer) and VIST Group are working together to switch these big beast over to the latest 5G network for quicker remote response and autonomous operation.
Trucks like the BELAZ you see in the image above are rated to haul 90 tons of payload, while heavier trucks are capable of carrying up to 450 tons.
The BELAZ 7513 you see here is powered by a 12-cylinder 45.0-liter Cummins diesel engine that produces approximately 1,600 hp and over 6,800 lb-ft of torque.
The new 5G mobile network that was setup in cooperation with Belarusian Cloud Technologies (beCloud) allows for response times of 10-11 milliseconds. This allows the trucks to be connected to a precise satellite-based navigation system and work in an autonomous mode.
The whole point of these mining trucks it do maximum amount of work, and running the equipment without human involvement has some benefits. Still a complete autonomous mining solution is a very complex project to implement in accordance with all regulations and requirements.
Here is another look at technologies being developed by Bosch to enable driver-assisted and autonomous operation of semi trucks.
