Building upon an ongoing partnership, Liebherr and Fortescue Metals have announced plans to develop an autonomous haulage solution
Partnering since June 2022, Liebherr and Fortescue plan to further collaborate on a project that will develop and validate an autonomous haulage solution (AHS).
The AHS will be integrated with zero emission haul trucks that the companies are currently co-developing, with the aim to be the first AHS operating zero emissions vehicles globally, Liebherr announced.
As part of the AHS development, both companies say they will develop an integrated fleet management system and a machine guidance solution, capable of being used independently on human-operated sites.
Once the system is validated, the autonomous haulage solution will be deployed across Fortescue mine sites.
“Our deep expertise in autonomous haulage that has come from operating over 200 diesel autonomous haul trucks across our mine sites, has enabled Fortescue and Liebherr to develop a fleet management system that uniquely targets efficiency and unlocks untapped capacity in our fleet,” Fortescue Metals chief executive officer Dino Otranto says.
The AHS, the fleet management system and machine guidance solution will also be made available to customers worldwide as part of Liebherr’s expanding technology portfolio.
“Our collaborative efforts will be beneficial for not only Fortescue, but all customers who choose to implement Liebherr technology products on their sites,” Liebherr Mining executive vice president of R&D, engineering and production Oliver Weiss says.
In August 2023, Liebherr announced the deployment of four T 264 autonomous trucks in Western Australia for onsite validation, which marked the next stage of Liebherr’s development of a new autonomy product for the mining industry.
This onsite validation is currently taking place in partnership with Fortescue at its Christmas Creek mine site, in a purpose-built facility for validating zero emission and autonomous haulage technologies.
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