Autonomous Mining Trucks in Rare Earth Capital - Baotou

The autonomous mining trucks operated in China's rare earth capital Baotou, Inner Mongolia is 13 meters long, 7 meters wide, 6.8 meters high, and has a self-weight of 139 tons. Due to the slow response of power transmission and braking, and the large vibration during operation, how to precisely control is a technical difficulty in the field of international autonomous driving. Liang Xiao from Beijing Tage Zhixing Technology Co Ltd. said, "We are gradually breaking through these difficulties."

At the moment, Liang Xiao is at the unmanned centralized control center of the road transportation operation department of the Baiyun'ebo iron mine, Baotou city. Outside the centralized control center, an unmanned mining vehicle is operating as planned in the winding mines, loading, and down the iron ores following the unmanned driving method.

Baiyun'ebo mine, known as the "World Treasure of Rare Earths", is rich in rare earth reserves. The rare earth products here are sold well in more than 20 provinces and exported to the United States, France, Japan, Singapore, Austria, and other countries. As a result, Baotou is also hailed by the outside world as the capital of rare earths in China.

Since this unmanned mine car is still in the trial operation stage, for the sake of safety, Liang Xiao and his team have equipped the mine car with safety officers and communicated with the issues encountered in practice.

On August 26, 2019, the world's first unmanned transportation system for mining car was successfully developed by Baosteel (Group) Company in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. At that time, Degang Li, deputy general manager of Baogang Group. The construction project of 5G intelligent mines based on unmanned driving under the network conditions continues to proceed.

Liang Xiao, as the project manager of Beijing Tage Zhixing Technology Co Ltd., came to Baiyun'ebo mine from Beijing and officially commissioned, installed, and operated the unmanned mine car for more than 450 days.

"Autonomous mining trucks can autonomously detect vehicles, pedestrians, and other obstacles in the process of operation through sensors (millimeter-wave radar + lidar), and can autonomously avoid obstacles," he said, Baiyun'ebo operates 4 unmanned mine cars did not present any safety issues.

Guang Huo, deputy director of the Baiyun'ebo mine equipment department of Baogang Group in Baotou, said that saving manpower is the most realistic consideration. Due to the harsh local environment, it is almost windy every day of the year and the winter is extremely cold. It is difficult to recruit new people for rare earth mining. The autonomous mining trucks are also a trend in the future.

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