Posted by Paul Moore on 2nd July 2024
Constructing on the continuing cooperative efforts between Liebherr and Fortescue, the 2 firms have introduced that they may additional mix their areas of experience to develop and validate an Autonomous Haulage Answer (AHS). The AHS shall be built-in with the zero emission haul vehicles that the businesses are presently co-developing, with the purpose to be the primary AHS working zero emissions automobiles globally.
In August 2023, Liebherr introduced the deployment of a fleet of 4 T 264 autonomous vehicles in Western Australia for onsite validation, which marked the subsequent stage of Liebherr’s improvement of a brand new autonomy product for the mining trade. This onsite validation is presently going down in partnership with Fortescue at its Christmas Creek mine web site, in a purpose-built facility for validating zero emission and autonomous haulage applied sciences.
“With our groups now totally built-in, Liebherr is worked up to formally announce our partnership with Fortescue to collectively develop and deploy our Autonomous Haulage Answer,” says Oliver Weiss, Govt Vice President, R&D, Engineering, and Manufacturing, Liebherr Mining. “Liebherr has at all times prioritised market-led product improvement and we’re privileged to be partnering with Fortescue. Our collaborative efforts shall be useful for not solely Fortescue, however all clients who select to implement Liebherr expertise merchandise on their websites.”
Liebherr and Fortescue’s partnership to develop and validate the AHS was formalised in March 2023. Since then, the crew has finalised the definition of the System and is now growing the System’s in depth options and functionalities for validation.
As a part of the AHS improvement, Liebherr and Fortescue will develop an built-in Fleet Administration System and a Machine Steerage Answer, able to getting used independently on human-operated websites. Upon completion of system validation, the Autonomous Haulage Answer shall be deployed throughout Fortescue mine websites.
“Our deep experience in autonomous haulage that has come from working over 200 diesel autonomous haul vehicles throughout our mine websites, has enabled Fortescue and Liebherr to develop a Fleet Administration System that uniquely targets effectivity and unlocks untapped capability in our fleet,” mentioned Dino Otranto, Fortescue Metals Chief Govt Officer. “The partnership with Liebherr has enabled us to collectively develop the Fleet Administration Methods, which give us with an OEM agnostic answer that may be built-in with any autonomous platform together with vehicles, drills, watercarts or another heavy mining gear. This crucial expertise places our enterprise in full management of our improvement priorities and roadmap.”
The AHS – together with the Fleet Administration System and Machine Steerage Answer – will even be made obtainable to clients worldwide as a part of Liebherr’s increasing expertise portfolio.
“This improvement will enable us to supply the worldwide market a whole Autonomous Haulage Answer together with a totally built-in Fleet Administration System and Machine Steerage Answer,” says Weiss. “These modern applied sciences type a part of our increasing vary of expertise merchandise and are one other step ahead in our technique to develop into a complete answer supplier for the mining trade.”
This collaboration between Liebherr and Fortescue to ship a totally built-in Autonomous Haulage Answer marks an growth of the prevailing partnership between the 2 firms. The partnership started in June 2022, when the 2 firms introduced their intention to construct a zero emission haulage answer utilizing Liebherr’s OEM expertise and Fortescue’s gasoline cell battery and battery-electric expertise.
